The Last Of Floran
by joshingblock
Summary: The Ancient Gates all lead to the same place, everyone knows this to be fact, but a never before seen gate pulls a lone Floran to a planet thought destroyed. The Floran will have to wait for his friends to bring him back, but for the meantime the Floran most face his greatest enemy, Boredom. And maybe make some new friends on the way.
1. Friendly?

**HELLO FELLOW READERS AND WRITERS!**

 **Coming at you with a story**

 **Not much to say so...**

 **The last of us is owned by Naughty Dog and starbound is made by Chucklefish**

 **0o0o0o0**

" _Portal ssseem fun."_ a sickly green Floran stated with enthusiasm, that had his companions fearful of what their plant friend might do.

"Worried. No Keth, you can not touch it, you know what Esther said, we are just supposed to make sure this gateway is safe so she can inspect it." explained the Glitch of the four man team.

"You got to admit, it could be fun." joked the only Human.

"Frustrated. No, this is an unknown gateway with very different runes on it than any we have seen. Concerned. At least tell me we have taken care of all the monsters."

"Yes, they did seem to be drawn to this area for untold reasons, but I would say that the portal is what attracted the..." the Hylotl was explaining her theory, but Keth was too distracted by the strange gate.

It looked like any other gate they have found, and they all went to the same place. Most had a dark blue haze to them, like the darkness of space, but this portal was green like the foliage on top of Keth's head, as sickly as his skin.

"Umm, guys, we got a pack of Ooglers coming this way" announced the Human.

That got the Floran's attention, Keth unsheathed his spear from his back, and turned to see a pack of at least twelve Ooglers.

' _Weird, Ooglers usually stare from distance.'_ Keth pondered.

Didn't matter to Keth though, a fights, a fight, and that's what he lived for. Fighting is what Keth loves, and he loves it more with his friends at his side.

"Commanding. John, I want you to take up near the front with your rifle and cover us. Sei, take up the front with..." started the glitch but was interrupted, when Keth jumped straight into the crowd of Ooglers. The glitch let out what most would assume was a sigh.

"Cheer up, Freewall, you might have fun." said john as he rushed up to the fight shooting his rifle.

"annoyed. Sure, fun." Freewall muttered as he pulled his crossbow from his back and joined him.

Sei didn't say anything, just unsheathed her katana on her hip and joined the fray.

It didn't take long for them to take down the Ooglers, being that they were slow and quite honestly, not that smart.

"Wow, I almost broke a sweat." puffed John, who was the only one breathing hard.

"You're the only one that can sweat john." Sei stated, looking at him with a bored expression.

" _That ended way to fassst, want more fightssss."_ complained Keth.

Freewall was about to retort when a howl caught everyone's attention.

"Fearful. That is much bigger than any Oogler I've ever seen, be care-"

" _Floran ssstab dumb meat!"_ Keth yelled as he charged at the beast.

"-ful." finished Freewall with what was assumed to be a sigh, which is weird with no lungs.

There are not many things that Floran know, but he knew that his spear should have broke the skin of any beast, but instead of piercing the hid, it sparked off like its skin was made of metal. That shocked Keth that he didn't see the Oogler raise its hand, and swinging at him with such force it launch him straight into the portal.

"Well shit, that's not good." john bluntly stated.

"Aggressive. This is not the time, we will save him after we deal with this beast."

John aimed his rifle at the Oogler and fired many times, only for the long armed monster to take notice and charge at him. John dodge only a second from being flattened.

There was a sickening crunch as John looked back seeing that the ten foot beast destroyed one of the pillars of the portal, causing the portal to close.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me, what are the chances that this would ever happen!" John shouted.

The Oogler pulled back from the crumbled totem with it's neck twisted at a sickening angle. As it tried to move it fell to the ground, with the three adventurers standing around the body of the monster that banished there friend into a portal to who knows where.

Looking closer, Freewall noticed that part of the monster's face was scraped away, probably after ramming the pillar, showing metal plating around a fake eye.

"Enraged. Someone or something sent this thing after us, it is not natural, either they wanted this portal for themselves, or wanted it destroyed. Let's go see Esther, maybe she knows how to get our floran back to us."

"Yeah, I mean what's the worst that can happen?" John joked, but got the death stares from his friends.

"what?"

* * *

Keth woke up to what he thought was the darkness of space, it was just as cold so it made sense until.

' _In space floran would have trouble breathing, must be under water, also wet.'_

Though it can be taxing, floran can extract the oxygen in the water through their skin to stay under longer when hunting. Well he was going to need it since it was so cold he must be near the bottom of a water planet, or a planet with no sun, then he would have a problem. It also couldn't be an ocean because the salt would have started to mess with him.

Keth noticed that there was no place he would have come from to get to where he was now. No strange portal, no structure with runes, and no monster trying to kill him.

' _Well, no reason to stay down here, better find food, Floran hungry.'_ Keth concluded as his stomach growled.

It didn't take as long as he thought to break the surface of the water, but when he did, he took in as much air as he could into his body.

" _Floran hate breathing through skin...why so dark?"_

Most Floran have great night vision, but hanging out with his more fleshy friends has shown him how bad their eyesight is. If they were there with him now, he has no doubt they would not see anything, besides, it's not like they could see it now.

Just that thought brought him a bit of sorrow. Were his friends all right, did they kill the Oogler, or did they die because he was what Sei would call tactless, whatever that meant? No, his friends are as tough as him-even though they have it through tech-and twice as smart. Keth just kind of floated there for a moment thinking about his friends.

John is his favorite of the group. A human with so much optimism that you would think that his whole planet didn't get torn apart by a giant tentacle monster. He once told Keth that he used to be apart of the U.S.C.M, a Human organization that intended to spread the influence of humanity beyond Earth. Turns out, when they said 'spread' they meant force. John ended up having to fight his way out because, get this, they have rules against insubordination.

Freewall was something Floran had a lot less trouble not wanting to eat. Being a glitch that saw past the blind spots of his coding, he was sentenced to death by the high guards of the kingdom he lived in, but escaped. He's always the one to set up the plans and rules of engagement that both John and Keth ignore, you could call him their leader.

Sei is a stupid fish person, but not as bad as others Keth has met. Sei had to have been the first Hylotl not to try stabbing the Floran when first meeting each other. That cannot be said for Keth's reaction, which was to try to take a bite out of her. Somehow, with the help of Freewall and John, they were able to get the two not to hate each other.

Now was not the time to think any of them would die so easy, he would just find somewhere to wait for them to pick him up. Looking around, even with his natural night vision he could not see more than a few feet around him.

What he could see is that he was in some sort of tunnel with lots of piping along the wall. Keth started swimming in a random direction since there wasn't anywhere to really go. As he went, the water seemed to get more shallow and Keth soon saw more detail of the tunnel. One was how under water there was what he assumed to be railings for those elevators he's seen on the space stations.

The train car is what really gave it away that it was some sort of transport station. The only other place he has seen a train was when at a port they saw, what John called a Novakid ship.

Though, from the railings this is an old fashion train that probably couldn't fly which disappointed Keth, but it wouldn't hurt to look inside, besides it was the only way he could go since the tunnel was collapsed around the train.

Going through the train was not much of a hassle, but Keth was kind of having trouble breathing through his mouth with all the dust and decided it would be easier to filter the air through his skin. Usually dust would not cause so much trouble, and even though breathing through the skin does release some water, which could dehydrate him but with all the water around him, he didn't see a problem.

Almost outside the train car Keth found a suitcase with human clothes in it. So he was on a human planet, that's good, Floran has a human friend so he should be fine.

Knowing some humans though, Keth decided it would be good to not look so...savage is what Sei would say. So he took off his loincloth pelt and his animal fur he wore as a shirt, and put on a pair of grey worn jeans with a shirt underneath a hoodie with a broken zipper.

There, now the humans should welcome him with open arms, and luckily he could still breath through the leaves on his head, wrist, and ankles. Weird that he would find the right size for him in the first suitcase he found. Well, as John would say 'don't look a gift horse in the mouth.' whatever a horse is.

Ok, now that things have calmed down a bit Freewall would tell everyone to check their gear.

" _Floran, check. Human clothesss, check. Ssspear..."_ Keth patted his back where his spear would have been _"ssspear?"_

Must have dropped it in the water when he got thrown into the portal. No biggie, he could just go back and...

The ground began to shake violently, causing Keth to fall face first on to the ground. A loud crash of stone and steel occupied the space that he came through.

Standing up, he looked back only to see that his way back to his spear is now blocked by debris.

" _Ssspear..."_ Keth muttered in a defeated manner.

* * *

It didn't take him to long to find a stairwell out of the dust filled tunnel, and from there he could see daylight shining through. As Keth left the ground beneath, the first thing he saw shocked him.

" _Humansss bad at at building."_ Keth stated as he observed the two tall buildings, one leaning into the other.

Breaking his gaze from the building to check his surroundings, he noticed that almost all of the buildings around had sort of the same design, broken and unused. Nature has seemed to have taken over this planet's civilization, so what could have stopped them from living here.

Eh, too much for him to think about. Better to wait for his travelling comrades to pick him up. So he took a seat next to the tunnel.

* * *

" _Booored."_ Not even five minutes later, Keth could not take the waiting and decided his time would be better spent looking for food, since it has been about four hours since his last meal.

As he started walking down a cracked road with many abandoned vehicles of many different designs, but shared the same overgrowth of plants giving Keth the idea that he would not find a ship on this planet that would work unless he used Floran's ability to manipulate the plant life to interact with the human technology, like his greenfinger did with their ships. Then again, there is only ever one greenfinger in a tribe that can interact with plant life in such a manner.

A strange noise brought Keth to a stop at the edge of an alleyway. The sound was getting closer and sounded more like a large engine. Keth quietly dodged into the alleyway, taking cover behind a bin as a six wheeled vehicle drove by.

It was hard to see from the alley, but he could see men in the back of the truck in black uniforms. Way to similar to the remnants of the U.S.C.M armor that he has seen some of the prisoners wear when they broke free.

As the sound of the engine died out, a new sound filled his ears. This one came from behind him in the form of a human, only a few feet away from him, but they looked...off. First it was the smell, Floran are used to hunting with each other so they learn to ignore each other's scents, this Human smelled to much like a Floran but was off even in that sense.

Next was the look, it's face was covered in some kind of plant-but-not-a-plant, actually it was more like it's whole body, but it seemed to accumulate on it's face in the shape of a cone, how it could see was beyond Keth.

Last was the noise, the Floran language is a mix of hissing and clicking, but all the Human did was make clicking noises. Keth could almost make out a word between all the clicking, the translator always had trouble with the Floran's tongue and even Keth couldn't make out what it was saying.

The only thing that was more weird was how it was just standing there, kind of swaying back and forth, like it was looking for something.

Well, John always said not to judge before you tried to talk to the thing in question... that didn't really work well with the Erchius Horror, but as John always said 'being nice first will always leave you feeling better with whatever out come', Sei called him stupid.

Keth settled for greeting rather than stabbing, _"hello Human, want to be friendsss and share meat!"_

The presumed Human roared and charged at Keth.

' _Weird Human'_ pondered Keth as the stumbling Human reached for him.

 **0o0o0o0**

 **Cliff hanger**

 **Hopefully this is as good as my oneshot since I have to keep this one going as a story**

 **Review if you want**


	2. New Friends!

**WELCOME TO ANOTHER CHAPTER!**

 **Starbound is owned by Chuklefish**

 **The Last of Us is owned by Naughty Dog**

 **And I own NOTHING!**

 _italic-"Floran speak"_

"Human speak"

'Thoughts'

 **0o0o0o0o0**

' _Not nice, not nice!'_ he could not believe it, the one time he tries not to bite someone, that someone is trying to bite him.

He was trying to be nice to the weird Human but instead of meat being shared, the thing decided to take a bite out of his forearm and that's not friendly. Keth grabbed it by the top of its weird head, pushed it to the ground, jumped onto it, and started to whale on it with both closed fist, causing dark crimson blood to spray across the alley.

" _Ssstupid Human thing, Floran could have been friend."_ Kith hissed.

Why would it do that? He was just trying to be friendly, he dressed like a Human and everything. He checked his left arm to see the damage. The skin was broken with little in the way of missing flesh, but it did sting and was bleeding a bit of green blood.

His forearm was already starting to heal, but it seemed off. Floran are fast healers, sometimes they can regrow a whole arm in a few months, and they could feel it grow.

That was the problem, he could feel his arm start to replace what was lost, but it also felt slower. It felt like his healing was fighting something.

" _Floran not get ssso friendly next time... No, Floran not dumb."_ Keth knew something was familiar about these things.

It was like that time John's ship needed repairs, but when they got to the mining facility for the replacement pieces, they had to fight through a lot of Moontants. Humans turned into brainless monsters.

Maybe that's what that strange odor is. Well, if that was the case than maybe he needed to try and find some not weird looking Humans. Their smell should be good enough to tell if they are like those things.

Ok, that was the plan, find some nice Humans and ask for-

A rumbling sound came from the pits of Keth's stomach throwing off his train of thought.

-Meat. Keth was now eyeing the corpse of the creature with a shattered head. It was looking so inviting, just one bite wouldn't be so bad, would it? He has eaten Sporgus before and that wasn't so bad.

Keth walked up to the body and grabbed the arm, still warm. Keth opened his mouth, showing two rows of thorn like teeth, and took off a large chunk of flesh in a single closing of the jaw.

Keth swallowed the piece of meat as quickly as it was removed. He immediately regretted that decision, as the taste alone was enough to cause him to regurgitate more than just the putrid flesh.

He should have checked to see if the meat was fresh, but no, his stomach just had to throw him off from the basics of inspecting your kill.

After that little distasteful lesson, Floran decided to try find something that didn't make him want to remove his insides. Leaving the alleyway Keth headed in the direction of... where was he going?

Floran almost hate being lost more than being hungry, and now he was both.

The sound of distant gunfire smothered his need to pout, and replaced it with a need to find out if maybe that was his Human friend. John does love his guns.

* * *

'How did it turn out like this?' all she needed to do was gather some samples so they wouldn't have to kill every patient that was immune. Of course that meant heading to boston to not only gather another immune, but also try to figure out through simple test how to extract the parasite without killing the host.

Marlene told her that the person that they were picking up is important to her and that she needed Lisa to come up with a way that the doctors would not have to eliminate that person.

Lisa was not to keen on the idea but it could have worked. If they didn't get ambushed by the infected.

A team of five consisting of three guards and two scientist. Quick to move and hopefully as quiet, but no, the military just had to drive by as they were passing a herd of infected. Two guards were torn apart almost as soon as the truck passed, and her partner of science was too slow.

The only guard that was alive had her follow him to the front of a restaurant. They entered through the first wooden doors that lead into a small room with another set of doors that were barricaded.

That left them between a barricaded door and the guard holding the door they entered through. Lisa could hear the infected scratching and banging on the door.

The guard had his M4 rifle strapped to his back and he handed her his pistol, after finding out she left hers in the truck they took to get to the outskirts of Boston, not like she has ever used one outside of the firefly training. Maybe they could fight their way out if-

Suddenly amongst all the clicking and yelling of the infected, a deep hissing sound broke through. Then there was the sound of sharp objects breaking skin and ripping of the flesh, whatever is out there most be tearing the runners and clickers apart.

"What the fuck." if she could recall, the firefly soldier's name is Vincent and he seemed to pick up on the noise on the other side of the door as well.

The commotion seemed to stop after about a minute, when a soft combination of hissing and clicking was heard from the other end. Lisa was moving up to Vincent's side when he put up his hand in a 'stay put' gesture, stopping her in her tracks.

Vincent then took his rifle from his back, pulled back the charging handle and aimed at the door. He pulled the trigger sending six rounds through the wooden door. Vincent put his ear to the door and listened for the sound of anything living or infected.

There was no sound. Keeping his hand on the pistol grip of his rifle he pulled the door open and stepped out signing for the doctor to stay put.

What he saw was a massacre of infected. A lot of them had their heads smashed, while others were missing limbs. He knew that the bones of the infected always seem more brittle than uninfected bones, but it shouldn't be that easy to rip an arm from one.

Just as he was about to call for Lisa he felt something grab him, but before he could react the world begun to spin. At the same time, that something pulled his rifle from his hands, breaking the strap the kept it around him.

When he landed it took him a second to realize his rifle was now pointed at him. The thing that now had his gun was unlike anything he has ever seen. It was sickly green on almost every part of its body that he could see, with oval pitch black eyes with eyelids that seemed to squint at him, and its arms up to the elbow, covered in blood.

Telling from the bite mark on its arm, it was some type of weird infected, but how it could use guns left him unsure.

It was hissing at him in a threatening manner with its wide mouth partly open showing shark like teeth, causing him to instinctively reach for his sidearm only to remember giving it to the doctor, leaving him only with a knife, but that didn't seem like a good idea so he put his hands up in surrender.

Lisa watched as this thing now held her guard at gunpoint, but couldn't decide between being scared or intrigued. It had some how taken down the many infected in under a minute before disarming Vincent, and was now using his gun against him.

* * *

Keth on the other hand was very mad at the Human's poor attempt on his life. Probably would have killed him if he didn't hear a round being loaded into a gun. Was it ok for him to eat this one? It had to be, the Human wasn't answering his questions so it must be like the last one.

He knows that's not true, this meat bag smelled way to much like a Human. A Human that hasn't bathed in months, but still a Human. Maybe that's why his skin was so dirty, he was probably as white as John under all the dirt.

Good news was that he didn't dress like the Humans in black, but instead he wore a green vest with a beanie, blue jeans and boots. Wait... is that why they attacked him, he forgot the shoes? Weird how little the Human feet can take that they need shoes for everything. Then again if he put shoes on he would most likely ruin them since his toes are very sharp.

The Human seemed surprised that a Floran could disarm him so easily. Keth was really glad that his friends showed him how to take someone down non-lethally, and how to use guns, even if he didn't like using them.

A small click of a hammer being pulled back to his right caught Keth's attention, turning his head to the culprit. From what he could tell, the Human female seemed to loss any kind of calmness it had when it made eye contact with him.

The Human froze. Keth has met many kinds of people with his comrades, but never any that feared him, most just had a deep hatred for his kind. No surprise there, since his entire species has been known to hunt anything with meat on their bones.

Maybe he could try to talk here, _"Floran need ship...and meat."_ simple and to the point, Freewall would be proud.

The Human male looked a lot less startled and a lot more like the other races Keth has met, angry just at his presence, is that better or worse? The female didn't look much different, still kind of shaky.

"What are you waiting for? Shoot it!" the male yelled, with a quiet beep at the end.

Wait, was that his implant? Only time it would beep is to signal the user that the speaker does not have a translator, to clear up any confusion when speaking back. So that means that the Humans did not have translators.

Well, it could be worse. Like the gun the female had could have fired, when she pulled the trigger, instead of a bang it was a click as the hammer fell, probably had the safety on. Better time than never to try some of that English John insisted on teaching him, since more races spoke it than others.

" _Floran not hunt Humansss."_ for what it's worth, the fearful and angry looks were gone, replaced with dumbfoundedness. Keth thought only Floran mouths could open that wide. The male was able keep his jaw up, but his eyes were telling the same story that the female's whole face was showing.

Luckily her gun was pointed more towards the ground than at his face, he considered that progress.

"What are you?" surprisingly the female was the first to speak. Still a stupid question for a Floran to answer, in his opinion.

" _Floran is Floran... do Human have meat?"_ It's only fair that he gets to ask questions too.

"So what, now the infected can talk, fuck." muttered more to himself than anyone else, still visibly looking for a weapon from his position on the ground. More jumpy than most Humans Keth has met.

"Are you some kind of infected?" was she talking about the strange things that attacked them. If so he took that as an insult.

" _Do Floran sssmell like one...no Floran not."_ he practically hissed. She took a step back but held the gun low.

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense. Especially since you seem more plant based than fungi." Keth was starting to feel less threatened so he lowered the rifle away from the male. Unexpectedly the Human did stand up but did not make any moves of hostility but even if he did Keth never leaves his guard down, he only did that for his friends, especially after the last Human.

The female also seemed to have somewhat calm down, only holding the pistol with one hand to her side.

Now that the Human weren't trying to kill him he was able to get a better look at the female. Wearing a thin dark coat and the same blue jeans with shoes (he could try some on).

She also seemed a lot cleaner, and not just by smell, her skin was white, though not by any means clean, it is much better than the other Human. Her messy brown hair only reached her shoulders with her bangs covering her forehead.

From what he could gather she seemed to be around thirty summers old. Male looked like he could be onto his fiftieth summer.

* * *

Lisa noticed Vincent look at her like she was crazy, maybe she was. Only thing she knows is that this, Floran as it calls itself, is a living, talking plant that said it didn't want to hurt them.

The meat comment left her unsure, but she thinks it may not be talking about the meat on her. She put the pistol in her holster and took off her backpack setting it on the ground and pulled out a can.

"We don't really pack to many since they tend to not preserve that well on long trips," she held up the can. "but things like tuna are usually ok."

The Floran started to walk towards her holding the rifle to its side. Luckily Vincent seemed to be waiting to see if the Floran was going to attack her since a knife in a gunfight would not be advised.

As it grabbed the can Lisa noticed the bite mark on its arm under all the blood. It ripped into the can with its teeth and dumped the contents into its mouth.

"So...when did you get bitten?" she had to ask. If it in any could succumb to the fungi they needed to know.

It looked at the mark on its arm and seemed to think about it. _"Maybe ten minutesss ago."_

Ok, so it can tell time. Now she just needed one more thing.

"Could I have a look at it."

The Floran tilted its head to the side as if it didn't understand the question but held its hand out towards her.

"You can't be serious?" Vincent asked, stepping in between them.

"This could be the answer to the infection, so just let me look at its arm and if it doesn't work we'll ask for your rifle and be on our way." She needed to do this.

"Fine, but don't come crying to me when it removes your arms." he was certain this could not end well, but the look in her eyes told him he would make no head way, so he stepped away.

She grabbed the Floran by the wrist and examined the bite. It said it was bitten ten minutes ago, but the scabbing suggested it might have happened hours ago.

"Are you sure about the time of the bite?"

The Floran looked up into the clear sky as if to ponder the question.

" _Floran heal fassst."_ was all it said.

She believed that might be the case, because a lot of how this thing was structured suggest that it shares reptilian features. Its jaw for one seemed to be made up of two pieces since the chin seemed like it could split.

"Could you open your mouth as wide as you can." she said, the doctor side of her taking over.

The Floran opened its mouth and as she predicted its lower jaw split revealing it was connected by an elastic ligament, uncovered by the exoskeleton that seemed to cover its whole body.

It was completely fascinating to her how such a thing could have traits of a Human form, a snake's jaw, and an exoskeleton that many insects have. Of course Vincent was more worried about how it looked like you could fit a whole arm in its mouth.

The Floran's jaw closed and its head turned quickly to the street.

" _Floran and Human maybe move from here, hear more sssmellies coming."_ its senses seem much higher than anything she has seen, most infected had their senses impeded rather than enhanced.

"It's right, we need to move to the meet up point to get the...package." Vincent pointed out.

"Yes, I agree. Floran would you please come with us?" she felt a hand on her shoulder pull her away.

"Would you give us a moment." Vincent said as he pulled her a bit away. Like it would matter, if it could hear clickers down a street, a conversation a few feet away wouldn't be a problem.

"Are you crazy? We are lucky it didn't just kill us, it can have my gun, but I'm not going to risk having this thing near any of us." he angrily whispered.

"I know that it may seem like a bad idea but this thing is also immune to infection. No sign of fungal growth and the bite mark is almost healed."

"Have you looked at the thing, it's probably been infected since the beginning."

"Unlikely, since it is a plant and not a fungus. From what we know from just basic biology, fungi is more related to animals than plants. The thing that interests me most is the Physical traits it shares with us, it's possible that this thing is a chance at a cure through blood rather than the parasite that attacks the brain. Though, it does show signs of higher brain functions, it has be more plant than animal."

"Fuck, fine, you want to bring the thing that can swallow your head whole, go ahead, but if it tries anything..." his eyes quickly darted over to the Floran giving her an idea of what he meant.

"Yeah, I get it. Besides, I doubt we would be alive if it weren't for it showing up when it did. We just need to get to the capitol building to meet the other teams and make it back to the firefly headquarters." she need to be clear with him about what needed to be done.

"Yeah, just start praying that they don't shoot the thing on sight." he lazily declared.

They both turned back towards the Floran to see it knelt down next to a dead clickers poking the head.

Vincent was the first to approach the Floran.

"I'd like my gun back." he said flatly.

The Floran looked at him for a second, like he was studying him.

" _Floran want trade."_ it said with a hint of excitement.

"What could I have that you would want, you have my gun."

The Floran simple pointed towards his KA-BAR knife he had strapped to his chest.

" _Floran like ssstabby."_ it seemed almost fixated on his knife, it was almost childish.

"Fine, but my rifle first."

" _Floran not ssstupid, stabby firssst."_ it said stubbornly, just like a child.

Vincent grunted, but he undid the holster on his knife and handed it to the Floran.

In return the Floran handed the rifle over to him.

" _Human not so bad."_ it said in a cheery tone.

Vincent just let out a sigh and walked off to check around the area.

Now it was her turn, "Excuse me Floran, but I would like to ask you a question."

" _Human ask."_ it said, pulling its gaze from its weapon.

"I was hoping that you would come with me and my... friend, you see people are getting sick and it is killing a lot of peo-"

" _Floran help."_ it interrupted, as it was strapping the knife to its pants.

"Any particular reason why you would help so easily." she was almost afraid to ask.

" _Floran like helping...also Human have more meat, right?"_ does it only think about food?

"Yes, we do have some, but you will need to help us on the way there, ok?"

" _Floran alwaysss carry own weight."_

"Ok, enough of that, let's get moving before any infected show up. We will need to move through the tunnels nearby to get to the capitol." Vincent stated, as he pointed in the direction that they needed to head.

So they were off, to find humanity's last hope.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

 **Leave a review if you want**

 **If you want to see more give this story a follow**


	3. Saving a friend!

**WELCOME TO ANOTHER CHAPTER!**

 **Starbound is owned by Chucklefish**

 **The Last of Us is owned by Naughty Dog**

 **And I own NOTHING!**

 _italic-"Floran speak"_

"Human speak"

'Thoughts'

(yes, I did just copy and paste the intro from before)

 **0o0o0o0o0**

" _Floran not like tunnel."_ it really isn't ideal for a Floran's senses to be hindered by such weird dust. Maybe he could ask the Human if he could borrow her mask.

It didn't help that he was still hungry. That can of fish did help a little and the small critters he tested his new stabby tool on were filling the void in his pit of a stomach, but he would need something bigger to keep him from looking at his new friends with an irrepressible hunger.

"Any reason why? I assume that the spores shouldn't bother you." The female's voice was mostly muffled by the mask she wore.

He really should ask them if they have names. All Humans have that right? Floran didn't get names till they succeed in a hunt. That was one of the reasons why he doesn't have a 'real' Floran name.

It was his Human friend John that gave him his name, after finding Keth amongst the ruins of his Floran tribe.

Better to not think about it, he needed to keep himself on 'track' as it were. That made him giggle a bit. Usually it was John that made puns.

He really was starting to miss his friends. The female was starting to look at him funny, he should probably answer her question.

It was hard to pull the air into his lungs, but to just speak wasn't as bad. _"Floran don't breath air here too good. Floran can't sssmell prey here, becaussse Floran breath off ssskin."_ Hopefully they would now answer his question, _"Human namess?"_ he was really nailing the English language.

"My name is Lisa and the big imposing man up front is Vincent, but telling from the lisp, I would recommend just calling him Vin. So you can breath through your leaves?" Keth nodded, "but you can also breath like us?" another nod "fascinating." she simply put.

"Keep it down, if there is any infected down here I'd like to hear them first." Vincent snapped.

Keth really felt like taking back that not-so-bad comment, but it really did seem like a better idea to stay quiet. Even with his eyes it is very hard to see through the now known to be spores, so he would have to rely on his hearing.

Still moving forward through the tunnel and the train cars that littered the path, there was no sign of anything living or otherwise around them, except for the fungus growing from the few bodies they've passed.

"So, what you do is a form of breathing, Respiration and Photosynthesis. You're able to pull in air into your lungs and push it out, that's breathing. For the other two you must use the Stomata under your leaves. Does that mean that you can take in carbon dioxide and oxygen, but also filter the air around you?" she whispered.

Keth understood less than half of what she said. Only time he heard any words like that was with the doctor at the outpost, that was the only reason he was familiar with her examination of him earlier.

"I think you are expecting too much from the plant thing, looks like it is sweating from all the questions." Vincent cut in.

"I don't think that is sweat, if he does use Stomata, he would be letting off a lot of water. Are you OK? It's pretty dry down here." she seemed worried.

" _Floran wasss ssswimming before, Floran good now."_ Keth was glad the Humans didn't seem completely void of niceness.

"OK, this is our exit." Vincent pointed out to some numbers on a withering board.

As they were finding their way out through the halls, Keth had more questions. If he was going to stick with the Humans he needed to know what was OK to kill and what wasn't...and what he could eat.

" _Why funny Humansss hunt other Human?"_ a simple question, but one that needed to answered.

"Where the hell have you been to not know about the infection?" Floran was really considering eating this Human...still, he does have a point.

" _Floran home isss Beta Auch Forty-Nine Eleven, One A."_ the planet that his friends and he made home.

Both Humans stopped and turned towards him. "Those are coordinates, but what do the letters stand for?" asked Lisa.

" _Sssysstem of home planet."_ it seemed like a simple answer, but the Humans looked even more confused.

"So what you are saying is that you are not some crazy plant creature from earth, but a crazy plant from another world? god dammit, today just gets weirder." Vincent said more to himself than to anyone.

Wait, what did he just say. _"Planet isss Humans?"_ that can't be right.

"So you know what earth is, have you been here before?" Floran shook his head. "then how come you know what earth is? Are you really an alien? What is your culture like? How do you reproduce? What's the name of your species?" Lisa was going at it with the questions that Vincent shook her shoulder to get her to calm down.

While she is calming down he supposed he could answer some of the questions and maybe ask the big one. _"Floran friendsss talk about earth never been here. Floran isss alien, Floran guessss. Floran huntersss."_

Keth started to scratch the back of his head. _"Floran not want to anssswer the next one."_ he was too young at the time, and since his friends aren't Floran he's not really sure how reproduction works for his kind.

" _Floran called Floran, Floran name is Kesss."_ damn, he still couldn't say his name.

The female was somewhat composed, taking in a breath.

" _Floran still have one question."_ they both looked at him _"didn't planet go boom?"_ as he said that he closed his fist together and pulled them apart mimicking a explosion.

"No, last time I checked earth is still in one piece." Vincent said with a smirk, giving the indication that what he said was a joke.

Almost immediately he was back into his main state of mind. "OK, let's keep moving. No reason to stand around in this shit hole."

* * *

'A real alien.' there was so much she wanted to ask and even more studying she wanted to do of this completely plant based life form. Like what kind of friends did it have, since it's a carnivore, and sometimes how it would eye Vincent when he wasn't looking, it probably wasn't friends with too many flesh based people.

Then again it didn't attack them out right, from what she could tell it came to help them. Now it was saying it's name was Kesss, but with the lisp it was probably Keith, which means it's a male of its species, if it wasn't obvious by his build.

They were near an opening at the end of the hall when they heard multiple clickers ahead. Vincent quickly signaled for them to move to cover. It was hard for her to see anything through the spores and the mask didn't help with visibility.

Lisa moved to a counter across the hall from Vincent. For what it's worth the Floran...Keith seemed to know what the signs meant and quickly moved next Lisa.

" _What Floran hiding from?"_ Keith whispered.

"You do hear the clickers up ahead, don't you?" she whispered back.

" _Only clicky, lassst one Floran kill wasss blind."_

"Yes, all clickers are blind, it's what happens in the third stage, but that's not the point, we need to get through. We are not going to fight all of them, so we need to move around them quietly."

" _Floran can do sssneaky."_

"Good, now all you and I need to do is stay with Vincent, OK?" she asked, Keith nodded.

Vincent was keeping an eye out while Lisa was whispering to the plant. Just what he needed, babysitting was never in the job description. Maybe he made a mistake leaving the military, good food, clean place to sleep, and everyone you worked with knew how to use a gun. He just couldn't handle them doing nothing about the infection and the fireflies offered him the chance.

Lisa was looking at him, which meant it was time to get it together and lead them out. He exhaled slowly and signed for them to follow.

The open area was dark except for the bits of light that broke through the crumbling ceiling. Even then the only way he could tell there was clickers was by the constant clicking that bounced off the walls in hopes of finding their prey.

Moving forward he saw a runner just standing in their path. Rushing forward Vincent wrapped his arm around its throat and pulled it behind cover.

They were halfway to the staircase out, all they needed to do was cross an intersection. Right as he was about to cross it, he felt a force pull him by the back of his collar landing him on his back.

"What the hell?" he said looking at the Floran now standing in front of him, its back facing him in a combat stance.

At the same moment a clicker rounded the corner and was about to cry out before the Floran grabbed it by the neck and slammed it into the wall.

It was like an animal, how it pulled the knife out and begun to stab it in the the gut once, twice, three times, before flipping the knife into a reverse grip and sunk the blade into the center of its head with a sickening crack, silencing it.

The Floran set the clicker on the ground quietly staying in a crouched position wiping the blade off on its pants.

Its head suddenly turned to him, he swore that his heart skipped a beat as he stared into its big black eyes, face covered in infected blood. For a second he thought maybe it would turn on him now, rip him open and eat him alive.

" _Vin uninjured?"_ tilting its head to the side,it sounded worried.

Vincent released a breath he didn't even know he was holding and got up. "I'm fine, let's keep moving before anymore show up." he tried to keep the fear down but even he could hear it.

"Vincent, if you need a moment to breath we should be fine for a second." Lisa sounded just as worried.

" _Floran agree."_ the Floran said.

Vincent inhaled "I'm fine, let's just keep moving." he said much calmer.

* * *

Keth was glad to be outside again, taking in the sun. Keth is worried about Vin though, he seemed pretty fine when he threw him to the ground, but when Keth looked at him, he seemed to freeze up.

Keth didn't like the idea of a Human being afraid of him, for a weird reason he preferred when they hated him, a lot easier to make them like you that way.

"Hey Keith, you OK?" he heard Lisa ask.

" _What?"_ he asked.

"You've been standing there for a bit, we need your help getting the fire escape ladder down." Vincent informed.

" _OK, alssso not name, no letter i in name."_ probably would have been easier if his name was Keith, but he did like being Keth. He's just glad that Sei taught him basic stuff like spelling though he still hates math, how many apples does one Human need.

"So it's Keth not Keith?" Lisa asked, getting a nod from Keth.

Vincent was slightly crouched with his hands together as a sign for him to get boosted up.

"All you need to do is-" Floran didn't wait for him to finish, as he ran at him putting his foot in his hands before stepping on his shoulder launching himself up grabbing the ladder and pulled himself up.

Floran broke the thing holding the ladder up, dropping it down for them to climb.

As they made it to the roof, Floran was amazed at just how much destruction there was. Nature seemed to have taken over more than he thought, there was even a tall building leaning into another.

"There it is." he heard Vincent say, pointing off towards a big circular roof of a building, not far from their position.

"Almost there." Lisa quietly said to herself.

"Hey Keth." Vincent said, drawing Keth's attention away from the shiny building.

"I just wanted to say...Thanks for saving my ass back there." Keth tilted his head.

" _Floran save more than vin assss."_ Keth stated.

"No, that's not what...you're messing with me." Keth giggle at the Human's gullibility.

That got a little laugh out of Vincent. "Very funny, but seriously, thanks for what you've done so far."

" _Floran glad to help."_ Keth said with pride.

"Just a little advice, when we meet up with the others you need to stay back and let us introduce you. Would kind of be bad if they shot you on sight." Keth nodded.

He's doing good here, two new Human friends and an adventure with hopefully lots of meat that he can eat. _'Speaking of food'_ Keth reached into his coat pocket and took out a dead rat. Looking over Vincent was now talking to Lisa, neither paying him any attention, so he put the rat in his mouth and let it slide down his throat.

That should keep him from eating his friends until he could find something better, but for now he would keep helping his new friends.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

 **Leave a review if you want**

 **If you want to see more give this story a follow**


	4. Losing friends

**WELCOME TO ANOTHER CHAPTER!**

 **Starbound is owned by Chucklefish**

 **The Last of Us is owned by Naughty Dog**

 **And I own NOTHING!**

 _italic-"Floran speak"_

"Human speak"

'Thoughts'

(god, I'm lazy with these intros)

 **0o0o0o0o0**

"Stop scratching it, you'll make it bleed." Lisa said as you would to a child.

They are now only a few blocks away from the meetup point. Then she would be able to see if she could save the child and the world, a low chance and though she mostly dealt in certainty, she could dream.

Keth groaned _"But Floran not like heal ssslow."_ He complained, picking at the scab of a bite mark.

"Have you never had a scar before? Also put your hood on." Vincent asked.

" _Floran not like getting hit."_ Keth stated as he put his hood over his head.

"So how did you get bit in the first place." Vincent questioned.

" _Floran try to make friend. Clicky not good."_ Keth hissed the last part.

"Still, it's quite amazing that an alien species would be immune to an infection it's never made contact with before." Lisa said.

" _Floran not get sssick often."_ Keth put in.

"So you may just have a natural immunity towards the spores, or it's because you are more plant than human." the Floran just shrugged.

"Seems like a bit of flooding has taken the front of the Capitol, but it seems shallow enough to cross."

They are on the outside part of the gate and would need to make their way through the water to reach the stairs up to the Capitol. The alien dived ahead of them swimming through the water.

As Lisa and Vincent followed, Vincent grabbed Lisa by the shoulder. The soldier looked over towards Keth who seemed content with swimming in the water and from what they could hear, it sounded like he was purring.

"So, how are we going to explain him to the others? I get that we need them to see us first but from what I know about the other team, they seem to shoot first and ask questions later."

"We'll figure it out. Besides, you're a soldier and you didn't shoot him." Lisa tried to assure him.

"Yeah, but not before I tried to put a few rounds into him and-"

" _Friends?"_ Keth interrupted, now standing on the first few steps up to the building.

Lisa was the first to respond "What Keth?"

" _Floran not hear any human... but Floran sssmell blood."_ Vincent was the first to react pushing through the water and heading up the stair with Keth at his side.

* * *

"Shit shit shit shit!" Vin yelled as paced back and forth in the capitol.

"Calm down Vin." Lisa said trying just as hard not to scream.

"We just lost most of pick up team how do you expect..." Keth didn't really want to hear the yelling, so he tuned them out.

The room that they stood in was a cylinder like room, doors on both ends with large windows from the entrance. The pillars on the inner part connected to a partly destroyed balcony halfway up to the ceiling.

There were six bodies across the smoothed stone floor covered in blood. While three of them had the same black band tied to their arms as his friends with the winged looking thing on it. Keth recognized that two of them were like dressed the humans in black.

It was the last ones that confused him, checking on the spoiled meat he noticed that the soldiers and the dead human female were still warm. The dead female also didn't have the arm band or black armor.

Looking back towards his friends, they seemed at the end of their argument _"Lisssa, body not cold like othersss."_

That got her attention, she walked over and examined the body.

"She's been dead for less than a few hours... if she was one of the smugglers that could mean that they have taken the child." Lisa stated.

"Unlikely, the kid is immune but she would still show up as infected on a scanner. Knowing the military she would have been among the bodies." Vincent added as he took one of the knifes on a soldier's corpse and sliding it into his belt.

"So she could still be alive. All we need to do is find her." Lisa said sounding more confident.

Keth didn't really know about the female they were talking about, but if they needed someone tracked he could do that.

If the dead female was the one moving their target maybe he could pick up a scent. He crouched beside the body and started trying to pick up a scent. It's always hard to pick up scents on top of scents, but there was a peculiar odor coming from the females left hand.

Bringing the hand closer to him he couldn't really tell what was off about it, but if this was what they were looking for he could find it.

" _Floran found some-"_ he was cut off as a piercing pain in his chest followed by a loud crack knocked him to the ground.

"It's an ambush, get away from the windows!" Vincent ordered.

Keth laid face first on the ground, feeling his left lung filling with blood, it hurts a lot but he needed to find cover. He pushed himself off the ground and quickly took cover behind a pillar, leaning on it for support. He was down a lung but he needed to keep calm, good news was that his left lung has already closed off so his throat wouldn't fill with blood too.

"Keth, you good!" Vincent yelled across the room with Lisa next to him, both armed.

He couldn't really talk with one lung, it was hard enough before with the spores. So he just gave him a thumbs up.

"Good, we need to get out of here now!" Floran could agree with that.

Keth pushed himself painfully off the pillar before falling back into it. He would only hold back his friends, they needed to get out of here.

"Keth, are you ready?" Vincent asked.

Keth waved for them to go as he slid down the pillar on to the ground.

"Damn it, Lisa, we need to keep moving." Keth barely heard Lisa protest, but was able to see them leave through the back door.

Looking up he could see were the balcony broke, only ten feet above him.

At the same time he heard a shattering of wood from what he guessed was the humans that shot him coming in. The pain was starting to subside but he needed time before he could empty the blood so he could use both lungs. Using what strength he could he pulled himself up the broken pillar, even with his wound Floran are excellent climbers.

"Squad one moving in. secure area, we don't want the fireflies coming back this way!" ordered the human in front.

From his perch Keth could tell that this human was the leader of this team, which meant he has to die first, as Freewall would say 'take out the leader and the rest will fall apart.'

"Whats up with the green stuff?" the second man said, bending down and touched Keth's blood. "It's sticky."

"Doesn't matter we saw three enter and none of them are going to leave." said the leader.

"The one I shot should be dead. Even if I missed his heart his lungs would have filled wi-" the third one was interrupted as he felt a weight fall onto his shoulders making him fall to the ground.

Well, that was a bad idea, but what was he supposed to do when the human that put a bullet in him was right there. Only thing is that Keth isn't as cruel, he won't miss the heart.

Six ribs down, Keth sunk his blade straight into the human's heart, all at the speed expected from a hunter. At the time of the interruption the team turned around soon enough to see their rifleman with a knife stuck in his chest and the hooded figure pulling the knife free.

As they raised their weapons Keth already had the dead humans sidearm up putting a bullet between the leader's eyes. The second soldier had his aimed and fired only for the Floran to dash across the room behind the pillar.

The human proceeded to empty his clip into and around the pillar hoping to kill the thing that took down his whole team in a matter of seconds, but his gun started clicking and he had no time to reload as the Floran rushed him.

The human was able to pull out his knife, this caused the Floran to stop only a few feet from his prey. The human seemed angry and shocked but all of that disappeared as the human got a better look at the Floran, replacing it with fear and started reaching for his sidearm. Is that what all humans do, fear what they do not know?

Keth let out a hiss, he didn't like potential friends being afraid of him but an enemy, he didn't mind. He wasn't stupid though, running at any creature with good melee is a risk. Hell, that's how he ended up in this shitty situation. So he did what anyone would do and put two rounds into the human's chest.

The human fell as quickly as the rounds hit, but he was still breathing. Must be the armor, Keth rarely missed what he aimed for. The soldier tried to get up only for his breathing to become labored, touching his side seeing blood on his hand.

The male was just able to remove his pistol before looking up at the Floran. The human tried but again, Keth was faster and gave him a quick death like his commanding officer, a single round through the skull.

Now all he had to do was track down his friends, he had the scent from Vin on the knife he gave him but it was now covered in...

Floran began to draw blanks, he could feel the hunger come up. An arm, a leg, he could satiate his hunger right here, all he would have to do is take a bite. Keth knelt next to his freshest kill, drool started to fall from his jaw.

He ripped the sleeve off the meats arm, he could still feel the warmth coming off the flesh. One bite, one bite, one-

The handheld radio on the meats chest buzzed to life. "Squad one come in. Squad two has taken heavy casualties, we injured the women, but the guy is keeping us from advancing, requesting you get on their flank from your position."

A human female... Keth snapped out of his hunger, how could he be thinking about food at a time like this, his friends need him. He quickly picked both the radio, their scent and gave chase.

* * *

'Damn it, it can't end like this.'

Vincent was panicking, Lisa was bleeding out beside him and all he could do was keep the bastards from getting any closer. God, he even left Keth to die. No, there was nothing he could do, the Floran took a shot through the chest.

He rapidly peaked out of cover and fired a flurry of rounds catching one of the soldiers trying to push, before taking cover as they returned fire.

Looking next to him Lisa held her bandaged gut, hands and clothes covered in blood.

"Lisa, you still with me?" he asked over the sound of gunfire.

All he got was a weak nod, she was losing too much blood and he's running low on ammo. Patting his vest he counted two more magazines before he would run out.

They were almost out, the exit was right behind him, if he could just move Lisa fast enough they could get outside. Where would he go from there though?

More bullets whizzed over his cover and the sound of orders being given out. He raised out of cover seeing three men aiming his way, he didn't have time, this is how it would end? Gunned down for just trying to do what he thought was right.

The man in the front was about to take the shot before a dark figure rammed him against the wall. The other soldiers noticed this and changed targets, only for the new arrival to use the man as a shield.

Keth, it had to be him. Nothing else moved like that. He wasn't going to waste this chance and put what was left of his magazine into one of the soldiers, dropping him out of sight. Taking cover he reached for a fresh mag only to feel a warm liquid on his vest.

Removing his hand from his vest, seeing his hand covered in crimson. 'When?' he couldn't remember being shot, and he didn't even feel any pain. Is this what adrenaline does? Pulling his gaze from his hand he looked towards Lisa only to see her arms at her side unmoving.

He lost them all. His whole team, gone in a single day. It never truly hit him tell now, he didn't make any real relation, but it was still his responsibility to keep them alive. He failed them, all of them.

Suddenly, something moved out of the corner of his eye. Looking over to see Keth, he never noticed how hard it was to tell his emotions, but what he saw could only be called worry. Keth wasn't looking at him, he was looking at Lisa.

"I'm sorry. I couldn't keep her safe, I-" he began to cough uncontrollable into his arm, covering it in blood.

* * *

' _How could Floran leave them like this?'_ he couldn't say anything, not with the blood still in his lung. All he could think to do was apply pressure Vin's wound. How did human lungs work again? Humans are weak things but surely Vin would be fine.

His eyes kept moving over to Lisa, she was so still. He should have been faster. Why won't Vin stop coughing? He could hear more soldiers coming towards the hall they're in. he needed to move Vin, he needed to-

His thought was cut off as he felt Vin grab his arm. "You need... to get out of here." he said though pain filled breaths.

Keth shook his head, he wasn't going to leave another friend to die, this won't be like last time. Vin reached into the collar of his vest and pulled out a chain attached to a circular piece of metal, pulling it off over his head. He took Keth's hand put the chain in his open palm.

"Keep this safe for me would you." Vin closed Keth's palm around the metal piece.

The soldiers were getting closer, Keth didn't want to leave his friend, not to die like this.

"GO!" Vin grunted.

For the second time Keth has left a friend to die alone. As he rushed through the exit doors closing them as he left. He heard the soldiers behind him.

He was down the steps when they started talking.

"Got a live one here."

"Not anymore." said a new voice followed by a loud bang.

Keth stopped on the steps. He didn't know them that long, he barely knew why they came here, but he knew that they wanted to do good.

A pain he hasn't felt in years was building in his chest. His friends stopped this feeling of pain from taking him before, but they're not here now.

Before it was to feed, to eat, and savor the taste of flesh filling him, but at that moment there was only one thing driving him.

 _ **KILL THEM ALL.**_

* * *

"You think anymore will show up?" David asked the rest of his five man team as he looked down on the firefly bodies.

"Doubt it, I heard that this was their last ditch effort." said Alex "either way I just want to return home and go to bed."

"Yeah, I kn-" The doors behind him sounded as if a force of nature crashed through them but before David could turn around he felt a sharp sensation sink into his back. He fell to the ground, he expected pain, but he couldn't feel anything.

"What the fuck!" he heard Alex yell.

He tried to stand, but he couldn't move his legs, he couldn't **feel** his legs. Using his arms he pushed himself up just in time to see one of the soldiers wrestling with an infected.

At least that's what he thought from the loud pained sounds it was making. The other men in his squad were trying to get a shot but could risk hitting their own. One of them rushed over and tried to tear it off only for it to swing with one of it's hands, striking the man across the throat, blood sprayed as he struggled to stop the bleeding only to collapse onto the floor.

"Get this thing off me no-" the grappled man tried to yell.

The thing now had it's hands around the man's throat making him choke for air. Alex found the thing's back facing him and took the shot only for the thing to move the soldier into the crossfire. The thing then kicked him into Alex knocking them down.

The last one went to fire but was cut off as the monster pounced across at him knocking them both to the ground, he tried to get up but was tackled back to the ground by the thing. It started screeching as it ripped into the soldier, his men were being slaughtered and he couldn't move.

The screams were soon lost with only slicing of flesh remaining. Alex was able to push the fallen soldier off him, but as he readied his weapon a knife caught him in the chest. Alex looked horrified as he fell back to the ground.

The creature was now standing, breathing heavily. He was the last one alive, if he played dead maybe it would leave, but what would he do after, he couldn't move?

He kept his head down to avoid staring at it, and slowly moved his arm down towards his sidearm. If he could just reach his gun he might live. Those thoughts were cut short as a force came down on his elbow with a sickening crack causing him to shout in pain.

He felt its hand grab onto his shoulder and turned him on his back. He was now face to face with the thing that massacred his team. Its pitch black eyes staring into his, growling as it crouched beside him, mouth partly open brandishing his thorn like teeth.

"Oh god, please no." the words escaped his lips before he could stop them.

The thing stopped growling, grabbed him by his collar and dragged him outside. The monster tossed him down the stairs, he felt more of his bones break as he made his way down only to stop at the middle of the steps.

The thing now leaned over him and started to undo his pistol from his side. Maybe this thing is smart, maybe if he bagged for his life, it would let him live.

"Please don't killed me." he pushed out of his pained lungs.

The beast looked at him and snarled. It went over to the bushes and started to cough up blood. As soon as it stopped it slowly made its way back to him. He was breathing more heavily as he tried to push himself up the steps, but there was nowhere for him to go.

It stopped only a few feet from him and raised the gun up to him, he flinched only for it to put the gun back to its side.

" _Floran not going to kill Human."_ it spoke, the thing could speak and it wasn't going to kill him.

It looked off into the distance as if it was waiting for something before bringing the gun back up to him.

"Wait, I thought you weren't going to kill me!" he panicked.

" _Floran won't."_ as it said that it pointed the gun into the air and fired off two rounds.

" _You will."_ the thing then set the gun on the step and started walking away.

He started crawling for the gun, grabbing with his left hand and aimed for the thing only to find that it was gone. He frantically looked around only to see that it was nowhere in sight, but what he heard was screaming.

Infected, the thing alerted the infected. There was enough noise for them to come to this destination, but now they were drawn straight on top of him. Two infected emerged out of the shrubs near by and started rushing him.

He took down the first one with a single shot, but spent two on the second. A runner and clicker were the next to show up. Again, one shot for the runner, but missed the clicker twice and the slide on his gun locked. The clicker was slow, but it was getting closer.

He quickly dropped the gun and pulled a fresh mag out before three more runners appeared. He slide the magazine into the pistol and released the slide and put three bullets into the clicker. He was going to run out of ammo, there was no doubt about that. So there was only one option.

* * *

' _Serves you right'_ Keth thought as a single crack of a gun firing traveled through the wind.

Keth sat in a tree from what he expected used to be apart of a park before the over growth. He was staring at the metal object in his hand with the winged creature on it, his friends. It happened again, just like with his feathered friend. He should have heard them coming, but he got to relaxed and let his guard down.

He turned over the the metal and found that it had writing on the other side.

At the top it was his name 'Vincent' in the middle was what Keth thought may have been his surname 'Cavallo' and at the bottom a row of numbers '004210' he has no idea what the numbers mean.

Maybe this meant that he was one of them, a 'firefly' as he heard the soldiers call them. If so he would wear it like a 'badge of honor', he was sure that's what John would say. He really wish his friend were there with him.

He never like the feeling of metal against his skin, but he still put the chain around his neck and tucked the it under his shirt.

Keth sniffled as he started thinking about what to do next, only for a familiar scent to reach him. That's right, they were looking for something, another human if he remembered. Maybe he could still do something, he could still help this world from the sickness.

Keth jumped down from the tree and was about to start sniffing out the trail if it wasn't for the growl from his stomach.

" _Maybe find food firssst."_

* * *

"It'll be faster to go through here." the gruffly voiced man said as he jumped over the railing crossing into the forest.

"Man." said a smaller female voice moving ahead of the man.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing, it just... I've never seen anything like this, that's all." she replied.

"You mean the woods?"

"Yeah, never walked through the woods. It's kind of cool."

The man seemed to have found that kind of funny as he chuckled.

From Keth's perch he could tell the female child was definitely the source of the scent. So he found it, the cure for the human race.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0**

 **That was a bit of a ride**

 **It took me a few tries to get the action scenes the way I wanted them but in the end I think they turned out right**

 **Well like before leave a review if you like, I'm open for criticism**

 **Well, tell next time**


	5. Stalking a friend

**WELCOME TO ANOTHER OFF CENTERED INTRO!**

 **For some reason the top always sways to the left.**

 **Starbound is owned by Chucklefish**

 **The Last of Us is owned by Naughty Dog**

 **And I own NOTHING!**

 _italic-"Floran speak"_

"Human speak"

'Thoughts'

 **0o0o0o0o0**

It took him some time but he found the humans; tracking them wasn't easy as their scent was all over the place and he had lost it a few times on the way. If the road they took here wasn't so cluttered with broken down cars and collapsed buildings, they might have made it past the forest before he could catch up to them.

Keth followed them as they made their way through the woods. They both talked quite a bit, mostly about what may of happened to some human named Marlene. The male human seemed to think that Marlene was most likely dead, at the child commented that Marlene is a lot tougher than she appears.

Keth slowly and quietly followed them from tree to tree. The human male walked up to the gate that separated the forest from the town. The human tried to open the gate, but it would not move from the chain that held it in place.

"Well shit." the bearded human said.

"Should we climb it?" asked the tiny one.

"No. wire on the top of it. We gotta find a way to go around." The old one then moved around the fence, vaulting over a log.

"Whoa, look." Floran looked over to the small human to see her surrounded by flying puny lights.

"Fireflies." That confused the Floran. He softly pulled the chain out of his shirt and looked at the symbol on it.

"I mean real fireflies."

"Yeah, I see that." the male human replied.

A long pause for the girl and the Floran. The girl lost in the beauty of nature, but the Floran was lost in thought of his self made promise. One of the bugs landed on Keth's finger as he held up the tag, drawing him away.

It looked a lot like a Frostfleck, a small bug that you only saw on snow planets. The Frostfleck always gave off a cold feeling and are easily mistaken for snowflakes, the firefly on the other hand gave off a warm sense like that of a sun... like his home's sun.

When the bug final flew off he noticed that the humans were already past the fence using a wooden board across two buildings. They didn't get that far though, as they only just made it to an inner fence that had fallen apart. Keth quickly followed across the plank, but made sure to keep his distance. He heard them say something about going towards the smoke in the distance.

He could try talking to them, but from what he had already experienced they would assume he is one of those fungus humans. So until they needed his help he would stay back.

Keth watched the human dispatched two clickers that were in the area, the adult seemed able to handle himself.

They went into a tall building where he presumed that they would Search for stuff. Out of sight, but Keth couldn't hear anything in the building, so it seemed like a good time to look over his own gear after finding a vantage point.

He silently made his way onto a building next to the one the humans went into.

' _Floran, check. Human clothes, check.'_ Keth managed to find some new clothes after his last ones got very bloody. His new clothes are the same as the last except, surprisingly less worn. His new sweatshirt has no hood on it but the zipper works. Adding to his amazing wardrobe, he found a red bandana that he now wears around his neck. He still couldn't find any shoes that would fit and wouldn't fall apart just from his claw like digits.

' _Backpack, check.'_ Keth took off his not-so-new backpack, that he found on the way, and set it on the ground.

' _Adler, check.'_ Keth patted the side of his bag, his 'head remover' strapped to it. He knows it's called a shotgun, but that name doesn't do it justice.

The wood of the gun seemed well maintained, the metal was starting to rust, otherwise it still functions. Of course it took him a while to figure out he had to push the lever forward to chamber a new shell, which he only had twelve of, and it could only hold five, which he needed to load one at a time through the bottom. Slow to him but he would make due.

He still wasn't sure why someone would scrape a name onto the metal, but who was he to judge. He wouldn't loss Adler like he did with his spear... he was still sore about that.

' _Food,'_ Keth unzipped his bag to reveal several small, but fresh animal corpses ranging from rats to rabbits, ' _check.'_ Keth made sure to bleed the meat before, as to not make a mess of his bag.

' _Knife, check.'_ he thought as he patted his hip.

' _Vin...check'_ Keth placed his palm on his chest, the chain now outside his clothes . He wouldn't let these humans die, that's his promise.

The humans finally came out of the building and the girl started to blow air as if she was trying to put out a fire.

"Are you alright?" the human male asked, Floran was wondering the same.

"I'm trying to learn how to whistle." she said as she tried again.

"You don't know how to whistle?"

"Well does it sound like I know how to whistle?" The girl shot back.

Keth didn't really know how to whistle, but he was excellent at making bird calls. Probably not the best idea he had as he started chirping.

"Show offs." she whispered, as Keth quickly hid from view.

* * *

Some time passed, but nothing else really of interest happened. Keth did at least pick up on their names. The male's name is Joel and the little one is Ellie.

They spent a small amount of time on one street searching the buildings that weren't boarded up. In one of those building he heard them talk about someone named Angel Knives and how she punched people in the chest and then would kick their head off.

Keth doubted that, he would know. Punching through the chest was possible, but when he did his fist got caught between the ribs. As for kicking heads off, Keth has kicked hard enough to break the neck, but with all the muscle and flesh the head usually stayed attached to the shoulders.

Otherwise the only interesting thing that happened was the trip wire that one of those clickers set off. If he wanted these humans to stay alive it would be good for him to move ahead to find and disarm these traps.

So that settled it, Keth moved ahead jumping building from building, staying as quiet as he could. Some of the buildings had large gaps but that was no problem for Keth. At one point he was pretty sure he jumped over a clicker, but he was sure that if the humans came this way, they could take care of the thing.

The Floran jumped down to an alley, looking around he saw a wire between the walls near the exit at the back of the alley. Taking a closer look at what the wire was attached to, it reminded him of a Thorn Grenade, except more metal and less edible.

From what he could tell the trap is pretty simple, wire is attached to bomb, when wire is tripped, wire pulls something in bomb, big boom. If he had to guess -and really that's all he does-, if the wire was simply cut it should make the bomb inert.

Keth pulled out his knife and grasped the wire with his offhand to steady the wire as he used the knife to cut the wire. The wire went slack, but nothing else happened. Keth released a breath he didn't even know he was holding.

Keth now had a plan, stay in front and keep the bombs from going boom, simple.

* * *

"We gotta be clear on this. He... He don't take to kindly to strangers." Joel needed to make himself clear.

"Alright." Ellie responded.

"Bill's a good guy, he just definitely needs some time warming up to you, that's all." he said as he made his way to the other side of the building. He found a ladder down to the alley but it was broken part way down, so there was no way back up after they got down.

Joel immediately noticed one of bill's traps, but something was off. Taking a closer look he could see that it wasn't a miss fire. The wire was purposely cut.

"What is it?" ellie asked.

"Someone cut the wire, and knowing bill it would have been replaced within a day." Joel answered.

"Think someone is after your friend?"

"Don't know, but from now on we have to be more careful, understood?"

"Understood." Ellie replied with a sigh.

"Just... stay close."

Joel found more of Bill's traps that Had been disarmed. Whoever was going through here was taking the same path they are and obviously knew how to get around. Though he didn't know how far ahead that person might be it would still be a good idea to be ready.

Joel started making his way through the rear of a garage, "Ellie, come on, just..." as he open the door, he heard something break as he felt his foot being pulled out from under him.

"Joel!" Ellie yelled as she ran over to stop Joel from swinging. Joel was now upside down hanging by his foot.

"What just happened?" she asked.

"It's another one of bill's stupid traps!" he shouted in frustration.

"There - that fridge. It looks like that's the counterweight." Joel said as he pointed over to the fridge covered in rope on top of a wooden table.

"Okay." Ellie said.

Ellie started climbing the table and then on top of the fridge.

"Cut that rope and it'll bring me down!" Joel instructed Ellie.

"On it!" she said.

Ellie pulled out her switchblade and started sawing at the rope. She could hear something hit the fence outside.

"Joel?" she really hopes it's not what she thinks it is.

"Shit, here they come!" Joel grunted as he pulled out his revolver and began firing at the incoming infected.

"Joel!" Ellie exclaimed with worry.

"Just tend to the rope!" Joel ordered.

More infected made their way into the workshop garage. Joel quickly dispatched them as they came.

"Ellie, how's it looking?"

"I'm going as fast as I can!"

The table buckled under the Fridges weight and Ellie tumbled to the ground as the fridge went down sideways.

"Fuck!" Ellie groaned as she pushed herself from the ground.

"You alright?" joel called out, now higher than he was before.

"Yeah." Ellie responded.

"C'mon. You can do it."

"Okay..." Ellie said as she went back to the rope.

Just as a large group of infected tried to make it through the garage door, another person dropped on top of one and shoved its knife into the runners head. They quickly knocked a clicker onto the ground and used its back to jump up and grab onto one of the garage doors and bring it down onto the clickers head, causing pieces of brain and skull to scatter across the floor.

Doing so not only blocked one of the ways in but also brought the attention of the infected onto the new arrival. Joel couldn't get a good look at who it was, but knew that it couldn't be bill, not with how they moved.

From what he could hear, since he could no longer see them, he had to guess that the new arrival was being ripped apart by the infected. The few that went around went after Ellie, but Joel dispatched them before they could reach her. That's when he felt himself falling before he hit the ground hard.

"Joel - watch out!" Ellie shouted as Joel got to his feet only to be knocked down by a runner.

Joel was disoriented from the fall and could barely keep the infected from chomping on his neck before a machete planted itself into the runners face. That caused the body to go limp, Joel held it up to keep it from falling as the machete made another round for the neck, removing the head in a spray of blood.

Joel pushed the body off, as a new figure entered his sight with a hand out.

"Get off your ass and on your feet." Joel knew from the muffled voice behind the gas mask that that it was Bill.

Joel grabbed the hand and was pulled to his feet. As he got to his feet his senses finally returned to him to see that almost all of the entrances were blocked by incoming infected. So Joel and Ellie followed Bill through the only barren exit.

Bill quickly undid a chain that was keeping the garage open, dropping the garage door. Bill tried to lead them through before the infected started crawling through the barbed wire on top of dumpsters.

"Which way?" Joel called out, as he started running the other way.

"Alright - we'll ah... We'll cut through. C'mon - here!" bill said.

Bill lead them down an alleyway, stopping at a locked door.

"Where's that goddamn key?" Bill asked himself frustrated.

"Guys, behind us!" Ellie announced.

"Bill, come on!" Joel yelled, while firing his revolver at the incoming infected.

Bill backed up about a foot before planting his foot against the door, breaking the lock.

Bill and Ellie made their way in and Joel would have followed, but he instinctively turned around as he heard an infected right behind him. He could hear more infected coming down the alley and he needed to get the runner off him.

Instead of another infected, something else came from the alley. If Joel didn't know better he would have thought that the thing was human, just from how it saved him by stabbing the infected on top of its head and pulled it away.

Joel only saw it get swarmed by more infected as it fought back before the door was shut by bill, by dropping a vending machine in front of the door.

The thing had a bandana around its mouth, but he could see its pitch black eyes, sickly green skin and from what he could tell, it has leaves on its head. He was there at the start of the infection, but he has never seen something like that.

"Don't slow down. This place ain't secure." Bill stated.

He would have to think about that later, for now they needed to get out. Looking around he could tell they were in a laundry building, as it was full of washers and driers.

Looking towards the only other exit, he saw a clicker come through.

"Bill, they're coming through the door!" Joel informed.

"Fuckin' knew it, take 'em out. That's our only way through."

They rapidly took out the few infected that blocked their path before they rushed out the door, past another dumpster with barbed wire on it, with infected coming through.

All three of them moved through the side of a delivery truck and out the back.

"Move, Ellie! Move!" Joel yelled.

"I'm going, I'm going!" Ellie yelled back.

"C'mon, it's open!" Bill told them, holding open a metal door.

Joel and Ellie quickly ducked into the room, before he helped Bill close the door as a clicker sprinted at the door.

Bill slid the bolt lock in place and listened for a second as the sound of infected died out.

"Man... that was close." Ellie said between breaths."Uh... thanks for the heroics and all."

Bill took off his mask as he approached Ellie.

"Uh, Ellie." she said more calm now holding her hand out to shake.

Bill grabbed her by the wrist and slapped on a pair of handcuffs and started dragging her to a nearby pipe.

"Hey, what are you - Joel?" Ellie quickly shouted.

* * *

' _Well this could have gone better.'_ Keth thought while using a body as a shield.

He didn't think it would be so easy for everything to catch fire so fast. It was pretty simple, find traps and disarm them. It didn't occur to him that there might have been other kinds of traps. He should have just stayed behind the humans.

In the end he had to backtrack only to see one of the humans upside down and a lot of infected coming towards them. Keth did consider the infected easy to kill, but unlike before where the things didn't even know he was there, he needed these ones to go after him.

First was to cut off the view of food, easier to go after what you can see. Next he needed to kill as many as he could. Probably would have worked if there weren't so many that ran past him, luckily from what he could hear over all the yelling, it seemed that the humans got away.

Didn't take Keth that long to get out of the frying pan, but next was the fire as John would have said. Keth followed the scent swiftly and found the hairy faced human struggling with one of the less fungi humans in a doorway and quickly intervened.

That brings everything to the present for Keth as he was now using that infecteds body as a shield. Keth was disgusted by the way these things acted, they act as nothing but animals. Sure, Keth could understand, he was called a mindless animal all the time, but these things were worse than even the most hungry Floran.

While using the body shield, Keth used the knife in a reverse grip to stab above and around the body to keep back the few infected that managed to get around. He had to make his move quickly if he wanted to not be someone's salad.

Looking behind him he noticed that the fence didn't have the wire at the top. Hearing something to the right of him he looked back to see the open mouth of a clicker, that he immediately closed with his knife straight through the bottom of its jaw and kicked it away.

It would take him too long to get over the fence before one of them would grab him, so Keth only had one shot at this. The Floran threw himself into his shield making the infected stumble into each other and without hesitation he flung the body into the fence and used it's shoulder to leap over the the top.

After landing on the other side, Keth turned around to see the infected pushing and clawing at the gate. Keth put one foot forward and hissed at them, he really disliked being hunted.

The fence is old, but it was holding. Keth needed to re-find those humans, if he keeps losing them like this he will need to put a collar on them.

Keth made his way around the building just in time to see the humans make their way into another building. Staying at the edge of the building Keth could see that the building was some type of bar. John really liked the old fashion bars, Keth on the other hand could never remember anything after entering a bar and drinking the poison.

The Floran quickly made his way around the side of the bar with a broken window and found the humans having a conversation.

"And maybe, I can put something together that runs." The more round human said.

"But after this, I owe you nothin'." He said as he slammed a pair of keys onto the table.

Joel quickly picked up the keys and unlocked the pair of cuffs on Ellie's wrist."That's fine. Couple of days from now we'll probably be dead anyway." He finished as he tossed the cuffs away.

"Good. follow me."

Keth wasn't really sure why the meat ration was wearing handcuffs but it seemed like whatever happened they were looking for something that runs. It took Keth a second to realize that they were probably looking for a car and not something that actually runs with feet.

Did he just call the small one 'meat ration'. Probably shouldn't start with calling them food.

"Whole goddamn town's booby trapped and that thing seemed to be following you, best stay right on my ass." The big one stated.

"Can't miss it."

"Knock it off... Whatever it was, it was messin' with your traps." Joel said.

"Don't think we've ever seen an infected like it, but who gives a shit." The round one said as he lead them into the bigger part of the bar.

Were they talking about him? Keth didn't really think the big one saw him, maybe he should be a bit more careful. The Floran made his way around to another window to keep his eye on them and hopefully gather more information. Not something Keth does often, but what better time than right now.

"What are you guys talking about?" Ellie asked.

"Some weird thing, got caught up in the door with a runner. It came out of nowhere and killed it before getting overrun. At first I thought it might have been an infected, but I've never seen somethin' like that." Joel explained.

"What do you mean?" Ellie continued to question.

"Its eyes... never mind, just forget what I said."

"Maybe it's an infected from the first outbreak?"

"Doubt it, never seen one of the shits use a weapon to kill one of its own, not smart enough." The machete one said, maybe Keth could trade gun for it.

"Also doesn't explain why it was wearing a Firefly tag." Joel said.

Keth forgot that he didn't put Vincent's tag back in his shirt and quickly put it back. The big one said that they could take what they needed from the bar and soon after they left through a back door.

From what Keth could understand the bar is connected to a living area. That would make things easy, he would just follow from the rooftop he just needed to be as quiet as possible. He just needed to stay behind them, no going in front and losing them.

Looking off to the side Keth could see a lot of cars and what looked like a medical vehicle, at least that's what he could tell from the red cross on it. Across the road a building with the same cross at the top. On the road he could hear some moaning, but nothing to worry about unless the humans came this way.

Keth stayed above but soon saw that the humans made their way down to the same road.' _Shit'_ was all that Keth could come up with. There was no way he could help out with this without being seen.

The humans were talking about fixing one of the old cars on the road, but the one known now as bill said that the batteries were dead and the tires flat. Right after that, the infected quickly made their way towards them.

"Infected!" Ellie warned.

The infected outnumbered them, Keth needed to act now. As the infected passed the medical vehicle and the two adult humans opened fire, Keth jumped from the building to the top of the vehicle before pouncing onto a clicker in the back of the crowd. Knocking the clicker to the ground before he brought his heel down on it's head with a sickening crunch.

Keth unsheathed his knife as he heard one coming from behind him. Keth turned around, crouched down to half the size of the runner. The Floran grabbed the infected by the collar before planting his feet into its chest, causing it to fall forward landing keth on his back. He then pushed with his legs, sending the fungi human over his head.

The infected landed right on its neck with a loud crack. Looking towards the human, Keth made eye contact with the smaller human. At first he was sure he saw fear, why was it always fear? At second glance he saw more awe than fear, maybe that's a good thing.

That feeling quickly faded as he saw Joel throw a flaming bottle at him. Keth has seen many wonderful things in his life, but if there was one thing he wish he could forget from his adventures, it would have to be the molotov cocktail.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0**

 **CLIFFHANGER**

 **Sorry that this chapter took a bit longer than the others got a bit distracted**

 **Either way leave a review if you want**

 **Follow if you feel like it**


	6. Learning about Friends

**Starbound is owned by Chucklefish**

 **The Last of Us is owned by Naughty Dog**

 **And I own NOTHING!**

 _italic-"Floran ssspeak"_

"Human speaking"

'Thoughts'

 **Where we left off**

 **0o0o0o0o0o0**

The Floran's companions had always been good at avoiding damage, Keth on the other hand was up face to face with whatever they have fought. He could remember every stab that cut his flesh, every bone that had been crushed and broken, every venomous bite that entered his veins, and every unbearable shock of electricity.

His friends didn't like how he pushed himself, but Keth wasn't worried. With his healing he never needed to worry. Sei was the only other one in the group that fought up close, but being a Hylotl she moved like a fish in water. They would sometimes have Keth looked over after battle, but all of his wounds would heal leaving no scars.

Keth isn't invincible, he has had many close calls, it's just that none of those things bothered him in the moment. If given enough time his wounds would be nothing but memories, but just like a memory there was one thing that always came back to him.

Fire, the thing that's haunted him since he was a sapling.

* * *

As the bottle shattered across the concrete, the flames from the rag lit the flammable liquid, sending a wave of fire towards Keth. Every fiber in his body screamed to get away, causing him to quickly stumble behind the ambulance to seek cover from the fire.

He could still hear the humans fighting, but he couldn't stop shaking, it felt like the air around him was getting thinner, and a strange whimper coming from his throat that he just couldn't keep down. Realizing his eye's were shut he forced himself to peek around only to see that there was no longer any flames.

Keth quickly calmed himself before looking up from his spot to see the girl crouched next to a car, Bill cutting up one of the infected, and Joel aiming his rifle right at him. As the thought passed through Keth's head he quickly slipped back as to keep something else from going through it.

0o0o0o0o0

Joel couldn't believe, it had to be the same thing from before and if he had to guess, it was probably the same thing from the car garage. After throwing the Molotov Joel helped Bill kill the last of the infected in the area before readying his rifle towards where the thing took cover.

Has it been stalking them since they came into town? If so, why was it helping them? It disarmed the traps ahead of them and has put itself in harm's way. Joel couldn't take any chances and as the fire died down, the thing stuck its head out.

Its eyes, even completely black Joel could feel them lock with his own. Joel pulled the trigger, but clipped the corner of its cover as it retreated back.

"Whoa, Joel!" Ellie exclaimed.

"Bill, other side!" Joel ordered, ignoring Ellie.

Bill immediately moved to flank from the other side in case it tried to run the other way.

"Guys, whatever it is, it did just help us, we don't need to kill it!" Ellie said trying to get them to listen.

Joel stopped, Ellie might have a point. He didn't really want to take the chance but he ran out of good choices when he decided to listen to Tess. Even if this thing wasn't trying to kill them, what would he gain from letting it live? Killing it at least kept it from following them any further, he already has blood on his hands so what would this change, but his gut was telling him this was a risk worth taking. If worse come to show he could just fall back on shooting it instead.

"Bill." Joel reluctantly said, slightly lowering his rifle.

"You can't be serious." Bill spat out, still aiming.

"Lets just see." Joel was already regretting this idea.

"You don't live long by 'just seeing' Joel." Bill warned.

Joel looked over to Bill with a pleading look. Bill let out a defeated sigh, lowering his pistol to his side he walked over to Joel. Ellie stood on his other side a bit behind him.

"If this blows up in your face, just know that I owe you nothin' if you die."

Joel was pretty sure that was the only way this was going to go, but everything pointed towards something else.

"Come out and keep your hands where we can see 'em!" Joel shouted.

A moment passed, "This is bullshit." Bill stated.

Joel was about to agree before they spotted movement behind the vehicle. It stepped outside of its cover with its hands held above its head. Bill looked as confused as Joel felt, he didn't really know what to expect.

It wasn't as tall as Joel expected, It was at least a few inches shorter than him and much thinner. It took a step forward before both Joel and Bill lifted their firearms.

"Not a single step." Bill advised.

The creature took a step back in response, letting them lower their arms again. So it could understand them, only one thing to ask.

"Can you talk?" Joel asked.

The thing started to hissing and clicking incoherently causing only Bill to raise his pistol again. It immediately stopped and honestly looked confused before it almost seemed to see the problem.

" _Ssorry, Floran forget ssometimess."_ It apologized.

"I'm not the only one that heard that shit?" Bill asked as if he was crazy for hearing it.

"Why are you followin' us?" Joel continued to question.

It pointed to Joel's right, where Ellie was standing much closer than before." _Floran made promisse."_

"What kind of promise?" Ellie jumped into the conversation more serious.

" _Find tiny human and make sssafe."_ it said.

"Oh, yeah and who did you make this promise to?" Bill doubtfully asked.

It looked down almost as if it was ashamed of something. " _To Floran."_

"You gotta be fuckin' with me! Joel, I can handle the infected, they're predictable. People scare me, this thing is like a mix of both. This thing is pretty much asking to travel with you, now tell me you aren't that crazy?" Bill protested.

" _Floran, not fungi, ssstupid."_ it hissed.

Bill looked like he was about to retort before Joel interfered. "Bill... What are you then?"

It looked confused again " _Floran is Floran."_ it sounded irritated.

"How long have you been following us?"

" _Found humansss in foresst."_

It's been following them for that long? Joel suspected it probably stayed hidden because it knew this would happen.

" _Floran want to help humanss, but human sshoot at Floran too much."_

"Yeah, no fuckin' shit. Look Joel, you decided what to do with this... thing, but if it even steps the wrong way..." explained Bill.

"I get it." Joel said.

Bill walked over to the gate leading to the church. Joel wasn't sure what he should do, he's never had someone or something help him with no alternative motive. The time he's spent around all kinds of people, he felt like he was a good judge of character or at the least knew when someone was lying. This Floran, as it kept calling itself, seemed to be almost child like. Even the way it held up its hands made it look like it was caught stealing from the cookie jar.

The way it acted during conflict was a complete contrast to that. It moved like it had purpose, it never wasted energy and every time he saw it strike an infected it aimed to kill. Bill had a point, it seems to want to travel with them or at the very least keep following them like it has. Joel is sure that if they told it to leave it would just follow them.

"Um, Joel?" Ellie sheepishly asked.

Joel sighed."Yes, Ellie?"

"I know I'm supposed to follow your lead in all but it did help us, and there is safety in numbers so why not have it help us now."

Ellie has a point, Floran did help them and from any indication it doesn't seem to be able to lie. He did have one more question.

"Are you with the fireflies?" The question did seem to catch it off guard but more to the fact that it was eyeing the ground near Joel.

Joel looked to where its attention was being pulled and saw a rather large knife. It must have dropped it after scuffling with the infected. Eille noticed this as well and picked up the knife.

" _Floran not sssure, only meet two."_ Floran answered slightly quieter than before.

"What happen to them?" Ellie asked, sounding more concerned while fidgeting with the knife.

It looked down again, " _Black armor humansss."_ It growled.

The military. From what it said Joel would have to guess it must have been only a few hours behind them, just enough time to set an ambush for anyone going to the same place.

For a second Joel thinks that he could leave Ellie with it. It said it wanted to protect her and if it's with the Fireflies that would solve half his problems, but only for a second. He couldn't just leave her with something unknown, telling from how it acted it probably didn't even know where it was going and was just following them.

"Listen very carefully, if you're travelin' with us you will do what I say. Just know that I will be keepin' an eye on you, understood?" First with Ellie and now he had to keep an eye on this thing.

" _Floran underssstand."_ It happily said.

"Good." Joel started walking away before Floran spoke up.

" _Can Floran put armss down? Floran getting tired."_ It whined.

Joel looked back to see it still standing in the same spot with its hands held slightly lower than before.

"Fine." was Joel's lazy response.

It quickly dropped its hands and followed a few feet behind.

* * *

Ellie wasn't really sure what to think of their new tag along. It's pretty cool for the most part, with the eyes it has the thing looked like an overgrown bug. She still wasn't sure about the Firefly comment, it had to have met the Fireflies to know about her, but how much does it really know.

As they rounded the ambulance Bill was standing next to a gate, talking to himself about moving supplies from a warehouse.

"Okay, well now he's talking to himself." Ellie whispered to Joel.

"Yeah..." Joel remarked before speaking louder,"Bill?"

"Joel, so the things comin' with us." Bill said a bit pissed.

"It helped us for the most part, might as well give it a chance." Joel defended.

Bill let out a defeated sigh, "Tess would have killed-."

"Bill... lets just get going, okay?" Joel interrupted.

"Your funeral."

Bill open the gate and lead them up the stairs to the side of the church. Joel helped Bill open the cellar doors and Bill lead them in.

"Here we are, you two don't touch anything. Let's gear up." Bill stated as he moved further back into the cellar.

The cellar was mostly empty, except for one corner full with stuff ranging from random books, articles and comics, to random pieces of clothing. At the way end of the cellar looked like a makeshift workshop, Ellie moved to follow Bill before Joel stopped her.

"What? I need a gun."

"No you don't." Joel said

"Joel, I can handle myself." why wouldn't he trust her.

"No." he said, "Just... stay here."

"Fine. I'll just wait around for you guys to get me killed." She said louder than needed.

As she backed up she bumped into something, she turned around to see she was now face to face with the bug. It was only a few inches taller than her but it still seemed to look down on her.

" _Sssorry."_ It said before it seemed to realize it was in her personal space and backed up.

It started to wonder off a bit before turning around and walked back up to her.

" _Ellie hasss Floran Knife."_ it said, holding it's hand out.

She forgot she was even still holding the knife. It felt awkward to hold as it was much bigger than her switchblade. She held out the blade before pulling back as it reached for it.

It seemed confused, she never got a real look at it until now, but one of the most notable things, besides the eyes, was its claw like nails.

" _Ellie want sssee Floran ssecret?"_ It said out of the blue.

"Uh, what kind of secret?" She asked a bit surprised at the change of topic.

It shook its head " _Floran ssshow Ellie sssecret and give knife back to Floran."_

"Okay." She wasn't to sure about giving the knife back but if it was keeping something from them it might be worth lying.

The Floran held out its hand again but this time used its other hand to roll up its sleeve revealing an all too familiar scar, " _Floran like Ellie."_

"Holy shit." was all she could say as she looked at the scar, except for the green skin it looked just like her scar. Floran said it was like her but she couldn't really believe it.

"Does that mean I'll turn into you, How long ago were you bitten?" She asked, desperate to know.

It kept its hand out and she reluctantly put the blade into her hand and watched as it fit the blade back into its holster.

" _Ellie ssstay Ellie, and Floran bite week ago."_ It said.

She felt a lot better knowing that she wouldn't become a bug person, but now that she thought about it, it might have been cool.

Before that train of thought could continue, Floran seemed to be distracted with a pair of boots on the floor and looked over to Bill and Joel still talking before looking back over to Ellie. She noticed it didn't wear any shoes and with its feet she could guess why. Instead of five toes it had four extremely sharp looking digits. It most likely ruined any pair it put on.

"Don't worry, I won't say anything." Besides, she also wanted to look over Bills stash.

* * *

Almost got it, almost got it.

"Hey!" Bill yelled.

Keth fell over with one foot in the air with a boot hanging off.

"What did I say to you two when we walked down the steps?" The human boomed with anger "what did I say?"

Keth looked over to Ellie to see she was also messing with the big ones stuff.

"I'm just fixing your stupid pile!" Ellie shouted back.

Keth immediately kicked off the shoe and stood up.

"Don't touch." Bill sternly ordered receiving one finger pointed upward from Ellie.

Keth has only seen a few humans do that and it was always the ones trying to kill him.

The Floran could still hear the older humans conversation but didn't really pay it much mind and only caught the end which meant they were going to move again. Good, Keth silently pushed the now toeless shoe under the table.

Joel walked over to them now sporting some new stuff from what Keth could tell. The first thing he noticed before Joel came over was the same can with spikes sticking out from before that Joel put in his bag and the longer version of Keth's head remover. Keth was really glad that he put his gun into his bag before surrendering, last thing he needed was to be completely unarmed.

then again, being a Floran he was still a enemy not to be trifled with or without a weapon. Of course that also meant he couldn't take it out without seeming like he lied to them, so for now he would keep it in his bag and bring it out when needed.

Hopefully this school that Bill was talking about is an easy 'snatch and grab' as Stonewall would put it.

Keth followed the humans up the stairs that lead into a large open area with just as big different colored windows. It probably would have felt smaller if it weren't for the benches leaning up against the wall. Of course there was a few things lying around like tables and shelves but nothing that drew Keth's attention.

As they walked through the room Ellie started talking to him, "So, It's kind of weird how you say your name when talking, is it because you can't say 'I' or what."

Keth wasn't really sure what she was asking but she was starting to raise an eyebrow at his silence.

" _Floran name not Floran, Floran name isss-"_ He's got this, he's been practicing on the trail for hours, "- Keth." Yes, he did it!

He never really needed to use the English language before, mostly because of the translator, so even though he knew the language he never got to use it that often. He was so proud of himself that he was sure that if he wasn't wearing the bandana the human would be freaking out at how many teeth he has.

"So why do you say Floran?"

He still wasn't to sure about that question as it was just how his kind was.

" _All Floran ssay Floran."_ he answered.

"There's more of you?" she asked completely surprised.

" _Not here, Floran not like Floran."_

"What?" She asked confused.

He probably could have worded that better, " _Floran not like Kess."_

She seemed to get it but now he was silently beating himself up and cursing John over his own name.

Bill went over to a window and started unlocking it, "Alright... time to sack up."

Keth has no idea what that means, but he was ready for whatever came next and he would make sure that Ellie made it to the Fireflies.

 **TELL THE NEXT CHAPTER**

 **This one was a bit hard as I'm still not sure it turned out the way I wanted it**

 **But either way I hope you guys like it**

 **Review if you want**

 **Follow if you want more**


	7. Lost friends

**Fact: I don't own either of these game titles**

 **Fact: I'm not dead**

 **Fact: You just want to read the story**

 **0o0o0o0**

John was sitting on a crate in his hangar cleaning the plasma residue from the barrel of his disassembled rifle as his two other companions continued to argue.

"I'm not giving up. He is my friend as well." Sei stated.

" _Frustrated! If you truly believe that then you wouldn't consider such a thing! Anxious. Keth is a survivor, but the sooner we find him the better."_ Freewall assured.

"Then how, Freewall? You and I both know what Esther said."

Currently that was what John was thinking on, Esther told them that before the teleporter the gateway was the only way to reach the Outpost. Meaning that the only way they could get their friend back was by finding another gateway, but they've spent a week looking. It shouldn't have been that hard, the gateway gave off a unique energy signal and with two ships they scouted over fifty systems... with nothing to show for.

So that gateway was one of a kind, no doubt, but they still had another plan. Find the builder of the robotic Oogler. The only problem was that they didn't have Keth, he was the best tracker they had, just letting him near anything and he could find exactly what they needed for the ship's computer to find the origin. They scanned the whole Oogler but it couldn't pin down a location as the parts seemed to have came from all over.

In the end they put up a bounty for whoever built the robot and their location. So far, only one Bounty Hunter signed on, a Novakid. Apparently the Novakid loved taking up impossible quests. At first they just thought she was rude but as another week passed they started to understand that Novakids just say what's on their mind.

So far, Sei is the only one willing to say it out loud.

" _Oppose. We'll figure it out but I'm not going to stop looking. Uncertain. We just don't have a way to get to him, yet."_ Freewall said as he stood his ground.

"You heard the Novakid, she's known as one of the best bounty hunters in the galaxy and she told us, to our face, that it was impossible, and that was a week ago." Sei deadpanned.

John hated how hollow her words always sounded. Always looking and sounding like she couldn't care less but he knew that wasn't true. Out of everyone she was trying the hardest, second to John himself. John could tell that this fight was about him, Sei always worried as he was Human. He just wasn't as tough as them, Sei's calmness always seemed to keep her from tiring as easy as him and Freewall, although a robot, did need to sleep, but a lot less compared to him.

He hasn't slept since they lost him and it was catching up to him but he had to find Keth. John is only fifty-six, maybe if he lived in the twentieth century he could be considered old, but times have changed and he was pushing it.

" _Resolve. You may stop if you wish, but I will not give up on our friend."_ Freewall said as he crossed his arms in determination.

"I haven't given up either but we are running ourselves dry. All I'm asking is for a small break for us to recuperate" She pleaded.

"I'm fine!" John shouted as he clicked the last piece of his plasma rifle back in place.

They both looked to him in surprise, this was the first time they've seen him mad in a long time, but it wasn't at them. He was mad at himself, he took Keth in when the Floran lost his home. He treated Keth like he was family but he should have trained him like a soldier, then maybe he wouldn't have rushed ahead.

"John-"

"I'm fine, Sei... I can rest when we get Keth back... I can't leave him alone..." He interrupted as he rubbed his eyes with his free hand.

He suddenly felt something on his shoulder. His eyes refocused on Freewall with his hand on john's shoulder.

Freewall looked over to Sei. " _Hesitant... Fine."_ John was about to argue before Freewall turned to him. " _Understanding. I know how you feel John, but... She's right, we are all willing to push forward but for me that's less of an issue, but you, if you keep this up... I wouldn't be able to face Keth if anything happened to you."_ After a second and a deep breath from John, Freewall let go.

John sighed as he placed his gun on a crate. "So what now, do we just wait?" before anyone could answer the ship's computer spoke up.

" _One new message."_

John looked over to his friends receiving a shrug from stonewall and a nod from Sei. He went over to the console, opened the new message and read through it.

"Heh." Was John's only response.

" _Curious. What does it say?"_

"Apparently that Novakid found the robot maker, he has a lab in some hidden system, Says the place is packing a lot of heat and that she's waiting for us so she can finish the job and get paid. She also says that she'll do it herself if we don't pick up the pace." John summarized.

A moment passed while everyone digested the information.

" _Worry. You don't think the Novakid is foolish enough to do something so reckless?"_ Freewall questioned.

"I've met a few of their species during my travels and as much as I would like to say that they're not all the same, I'm sorry to say that they do share traits." Sei informed.

"Okay, let's go over there right away and-" Before he could finish both his comrades gave him a look that shut him up instantly.

" _We_ will set course for the planet but if the coordinates are accurate it will take a little over three hours to get there." Sei said as she looked over the message.

" _Inform. For that amount of time you will be resting while we take care of everything."_ Freewall practically ordered.

"I doubt you will be fully rested, but at the very least we won't have you falling over when we get there." Sei said offering a warm smile she rarely showed.

"...Yeah... Okay." He released a breath he didn't even know he was holding. "Thanks."

* * *

Keth was pretty young for a Floran but he considered himself a great hunter. If his friends ever needed something done quietly it was him or Sei, so for the most part he only thought Hylotl and Floran were any good at stealth.

If surprise was a color, he would be that as he was quite surprised by all his current allies' ability to move so deftly... Probably yellow. He kind of expected it from the older Humans but even the younger one moved lightly. Of course they did move a bit too slow for Keth but it was still impressive nonetheless.

They mostly followed Joel as Bill didn't seem to confident in leading the way through the cemetery. Keth could feel the big one's eyes on him every once in awhile, not that the others didn't look like they thought he going to take a bite out of them. Ellie was the only one he felt tried not to stare too much.

He was starting to understand that no one here has seen a Floran before, but they had to have spaceships, how else is he going to get home. He's on a planet called Earth, a Earth with fungus Humans but still Earth, and if what John told him was true there had to be some kind of port where he could get a ride... if not... he would just have to go back to plan A and wait for his friends. They aren't great trackers but he had no doubt they would find him.

Joel lead them through the cemetery to a gate that lead to some kind of small road. At the crossroad were two infected, just standing in the middle. Joel and Bill went forward and simultaneously took both down. Joel took his down by choking it out while Bill just used his blade to split its skull. It kinda felt like how Sei and Keth used to fight together; fighting coherently without speaking a word.

As they took one of the paths Keth noticed past some old white fences with houses that reminded him of John's home, he said they're an old style from earth. For the most part they didn't look like they've been lived in for awhile. At least, not by Humans as there was a lot of infected just wandering around.

Keth could feel a growl roll up his throat. He drew his knife feeling his hunter instincts kicking in. He almost stepped into the yard before he heard Joel.

"Hey, we don't have enough ammo to kill every infected we see. We go to the school and grab the battery." Joel commanded in a low whisper.

Keth could probably take them on by himself but if they went for any of the Humans, that would be on him. Keth sheath his knife.

They made it down the path before finding a truck sitting in their path. If Keth had to guess it would be a bit loud to try to boost everyone over. So they would have to sneak around it, the Humans must have thought the same thing as they moved past the broken fence and he followed.

They circled around the fence to the front of the same truck to find a garage door open. Joel tried the door on the inside to get to the house only for it to stop ajar.

"It's tied on the other side." Joel announced.

Tied on the other side?

" _Floran can help."_ Keth said.

Joel gave him a strange look before stepping out of the way. "Try to be quiet, alright." He said.

Keth walked up to the door and inspected the door. Not that he really needed to, the wood itself smelled old, so what he was planning would work fine, probably not as quiet as Joel would like it, though.

With one hand placed above the door handle while the other grasped it, Keth planted his feet and with one pull he ripped the handle from the door leaving a hole in its place, a lot easier and strangely quieter than he thought it would be.

"Great, you fuckin' broke it." Bill angrily commented.

Without saying anything, Keth looked him dead in the eyes and with one hand pushed the door allowing it to open fully.

Keth remembered one time when he got locked out of John's house he pulled on it a bit to hard and broke it. He thought he only broke one side but he learned that the knobs were connected.

Keth went through the door before the Humans could say anything and immediately he could hear clickers inside the house ahead. He took cover before he turned around to see the Humans coming through the door and brought a finger up to his still bandana covered mouth.

Joel was the first to notice both him and the noises. "Oh, shit." He whispered. "They ain't seen us yet. Just stay down."

But before Joel could lead them up to the house Keth tapped his shoulder.

Joel seemed a bit uncomfortable at the contact but faced him.

" _Two Clickysss outsside, Five inssside. Floran can clear houssse."_ He explained.

"How do you know that?" He asked.

He honestly couldn't really explain it. If he concentrated on the scents he could pull details out, like how infected scents all smelled of rot and fungi but they had differences. Like how one outside smelled of grass and how one inside smelled like dried oil or another that might have owned an animal at one point. It didn't help that he had a bandana on his face which made it a bit more difficult to pick out the differences but luckily he had good hearing as well and those things make a lot of noise.

" _Floran hunter."_ Keth drew his knife once more. " _Floran make path sssafe?"_

"If it's right it'll be a pain in the ass getting through. Better to have the freak clear the path." Bill offered.

Keth decided to ignore the freak comment.

Joel looked like he was going over his options.

"Quick and quiet?" He asked receiving a nod from Keth.

Joel sighed. "Go then."

The second those words left his mouth Keth jumped over their cover and moved to the building almost completely inaudible. The first two clickers were standing under the patio roof.

The first one he approached from behind and kicked in the back of its knee, but before it could even hit the ground he wrapped his forearm under its jaw to keep it quiet as he slid his knife between its shoulder blades. Its struggles subsided as it let out a muffled whine before it stopped completely. Keth pulled his knife free as he gently set the body down and moved to the next one.

This one had its back to the wall but since they all seemed to be blind it only took a few light steps to come face to face with the clicker that stood mostly still. Keth almost felt pity for the beasts, he's been called such things before but these things... his kind are natural, it felt right to be Floran, but when he looked at the infected, the way they, looked, moved, breathed, even the noises, they all felt so unnatural. Was it in pain?

As quickly as the thought came Keth shoved his knife straight up between the mandible and hyoid bone cutting off any noise it could have made while the length of the blade would cut the spinal cord. He wasn't sure if the anatomy was completely the same as Humans but so far he hasn't been wrong. One of the few teachings he liked that Sei offered was the study of other species, probably his second favorite next to combat training with John.

He grabbed the body before it could hit the floor and sat it against the wall as he moved to the ones inside. It didn't take him long to clear out the rest with the same techniques. He made it to a side entrance that had some sort of van next to it. Something bothered him when he saw a wooden board that went from the top of the van to a tree house on the other side of a fence. The strange part was the faint scent he was picking up.

He climbed atop the van and moved over to the makeshift bridge. Yep, it was the same scent from the boots he tried to put on from before, whoever wore those had a pretty bad smell, it was pretty old though. He also noticed from the van he could see the Humans waiting. He was about to call out to them before stopping himself. He had to be quiet.

So he produced the same bird sound from before. Ellie was the only one that turned to see him on top of the van and pointed it out to the others.

"So that was him." Joel said quietly as if Keth wouldn't hear.

He waved for them to go through the building, from what he could tell this was the only way to get to the school. As the Humans made it on top of van Bill was the first to speak up.

"Well, at least you're not completely useless, where'd you get the plank?" He asked.

" _Not Floran. Sssomeone here before?"_ He asked, he wasn't sure if he wanted to bring up the shoe he broke.

"...Huh, probably..." He seems to be in deep thought before he spoke once more. "School's on the other side of that house. Let's get inside."

They jumped down from the tree house and went through the broken sliding glass door.

At that point everyone seemed to split off in different directions, Joel went searching through kitchen while Bill went more towards the front of the house. Keth noticed a bookshelf and since things looked to have slowed down a bit he decided to take a look. Just as he crouched next to the bookcase he heard someone approach from his side.

"So... you know how to read?" Ellie asked.

Keth turned his head to face her " _Floran had good teachersss."_ Keth said with a shrug before bringing his attention back to the bookcase.

He could hear what he could only assume was Ellie rummaging in her backpack.

Then he heard her clear her throat. "My dog used to chase people on a bike." She said.

Keth looked over to her and tilted his head. He couldn't smell any dogs.

"It got so bad, I had to take his bike away."

Ellie looked kind of nervous as she didn't get any reaction from Keth. She really didn't need to worry, Keth got the joke and he thought it was quite funny, but John always said his laugh was frightening so he held it in.

He didn't want there to be tension between him and the Human so he decided to offer his own joke.

" _...What did fisssh ssay when he hit wall?"_ Keth questioned.

The uneasy look disappeared as Ellie asked. "What?"

" _Dam."_

That got a chuckle out of Ellie as she closed her book.

"That was awful." Ellie said between giggles.

"Where'd you hear that one?" Ellie asked as the giggling died down.

" _Floran bessst friend love bad jokess."_ He answered honestly.

Ellie looked a bit more serious. "Are they with the Fireflies?" She asked.

" _No... hope to sssee him ssoon... Floran never gone this far alone, feel very far from home."_ Keth said.

He already knew that but it felt more real saying it out loud.

"He sounds nice, I'm sure you'll see him again." Ellie said offering a small smile.

He knew that was true but it felt nice to hear someone else say it.

Ellie seemed a bit distracted as she shoved her book back into her backpack and followed Joel upstairs. He could follow and eavesdrop on them but he decided to just tune them out and look around the house more, making sure not to make the same mistake twice. Since he saw Joel look through the kitchen, he moved further into the house and found what he assumed to be a garage, a much smaller cargo hold for small vehicles if he recalled.

Bill was already in the garage when Keth entered and it was noticeable more tense when Bill realized he was in the room.

Keth found it quite awkward as he tried to think of something to say as he started messing with a few random tools hanging on a wall.

"What do the Fireflies want with the girl?" Bill asked.

Keth was bit thrown off by the bluntness of the question and dropped what looked like a wrench on his own foot. Keth silently cursed to himself as he hopped on one foot while rubbing the other. He didn't get any noticeable reaction from Bill who was still waiting for an answer.

" _Floran not sssure."_ he answered as he put his foot back on the ground.

Keth did know that she was important for not turning into a infected when bitten. It was the only reason he showed her his own bite mark, and not the others, was to get her to trust him... Also to get his knife back, but the point was that he wasn't sure if the two other Humans knew that, both talked as if they weren't a part of the Fireflies and as far as Keth knew, only they are aware of the bite.

"Bullshit... you know what, once you're all gone it won't matter."

Keth didn't really understand but he couldn't really find it in himself to care. He doesn't like the Human's attitude but he was still willing to help them, from what Keth heard the Human owed Joel and that was his reason. Maybe that was true, Keth wasn't sure.

Before he could delve more into that thought, the other two Humans showed up. The two adults opened the garage door and they moved under and past it. The area they now entered was a school parking lot but was now a graveyard of broken down cars and buses.

The four of them quickly moved behind a car near the garage and Bill pointed off to the side of the school.

"There's that truck, sticking outta the school right there." Bill stated.

Of course that didn't account for the group of infected that wandered around the downed buses.

Joel turned to Keth. "Can you tell how many there are?" He asked.

At close range Keth was sure he could pick out any but at the range they were he would only pick up the ones they could already see, anything else was too old to be relevant. So he was going to have to move forward as to not freak out the Humans if he wanted to pick up more.

" _Give Floran ssecond."_ He said as he moved in front of the group.

As soon as he was sure none of the Humans could see his face he pulled down his bandana and flicked out his snake like tongue picking up tiny chemical particles in the air. His tongue retracted back into his mouth and he was immediately hit with multiple scents causing him to shake his head, he put the bandana back in place as he moved back to the Humans.

"So?" Ellie asked impatiently.

" _Too many."_ Keth said.

"What, can't count them out?" Bill asked.

" _Floran sssmell too many."_ He repeated.

In truth Floran could distinguish up to around twenty scents but past that it all blended together becoming too much for even a Floran of Keth's skill to handle.

Joel sighed. "Looks like we'll have to sneak through."

Keth was having doubts, even when the Human Joel got stuck upside down Keth could still differentiate the many scents that came rushing at them. Here though, Keth was picking up scents as old as him that were still fresh. His instincts told him to run away from this place, that if he pushed forward he would become something's lunch... but...

He looked at the Humans who all looked determined to push. It would be irresponsible of him to let them go alone, besides, couldn't let the Humans show him up.

 **0o0o0o0o0**

 **This story is not dead**

 **I noticed a few of my other readers of "Mass Glitch" are here and I just want to say glad to see ya**

 **As for the ones that were waiting I'm glad you're still here**

 **I'll be working on this story for a bit and will return to "Mass Glitch" at some point**

 **Maybe even try going back and forth between the two but you'll just have to wait and see**


	8. On the road to finding a lost friend

**0o0o0o0o0o0**

" _Nervous. This sure looks like the place but..."_

"Yeeeah." John whispered in response to Freewall with a tense tone.

John and his team found the hidden system and, of course, none of their navigation tech could pick it up until they actually entered it. Luckily, they camouflaged just as they exited warp drive. There was only one full forest planet that matched the description they were given, so they decided to beam down in the densest area and move from there to scout.

What they didn't expect was a base the size of a small mountain in width which, going by much smaller Apex bases they've raided, meant that it's depth is probably as big as one. They had a good position, crouched down on a hill overlooking the base from a tree line. Freewall decided have Sei move around the base to see if there was any weaknesses.

While it would have been nice, it didn't look like it would be that easy. From where John was, using his rifle's scope he could see, from what could only be the side entrance, at least twenty guards patrolling the wall. The patrols never changed for the full hour they watched and the guards never switched shifts.

It really wouldn't have mattered if there were shift changes as they also had Scandroids, and what looked like Twigun turrets. Scandroids, from far away, look like floating helmet but up close the thing is about the size of a normal person's torso. A few they could handle, annoying as they are they're not hard to take down with a few well placed shots, but there were more than a few. Twigun, a mass-produced autonomous defense turret and an even nastier piece of tech that could gun down a mech in a short amount of time but could be easily taken out, if there weren't so many to simple do so.

"So... What's the plan?" John asked.

" _Irritated. We wait for Sei to get back, with how big the base is that might take awhile."_

"Any idea where the Novakid is?"

" _Theory. Well, the base doesn't seem on high alert, so the chances that she would have already attacked are low and we haven't seen her ship, but she said she was here, so she must be around here somewhere."_ A minute passed before he leaned forward as if to get a better look at the base. " _Curious. Use your Electromagnetic Field vision."_

"You notice something?" John asked as he toggled a small switch on the side of his visor.

John was wearing what is known as the Seeker armor. It's blue plating and black internal padding allowed the wearer to move freely and the circuitry underneath regulated breathing which helped steady the sniper's aim, but the remarkable piece to this set was the helm.

The helmet sported a red visor that could use three different vision options: Night vision that allowed the wearer to see in the dark, Thermal vision allowed one to see the heat sources from people or objects, and lastly Electromagnetic Field vision also known as EMF.

"Oh." John realized as the EMF colored his vision completely dark blue except for every electrically charged object was bright white. It was expected that the Scandroids and turrets would show up white, but he didn't expect the same for almost every single guard he could see. Most were wearing full armor but even then it wouldn't show up in his view to that extent, unless...

" _Suspect. Fully automated security."_

"How'd you know?" John asked as he switched his vision back to normal.

" _Recall. The Glitch back home are less stiff, but these things show some of the same movements as ones who have not awoken. Inform. Apex don't have many warrior types, mostly scientists, doctors, and 'peacemakers,' not surprised that this one would use robots to keep him safe with only a few normal guards to keep more of an eye on the equipment. Suspect. Doubt the one we're looking for is alone, not with a base this big."_ Freewall explained.

John unsheathed a knife holstered to his side and went to stab the tree next to him, only for it to bounce off with a pulse of blue protecting the tree from the strike. "And they have a shield generator so we can't dig underneath. This is looking more and more likely to fail." John sighed.

" _Worried. You're not giving up, are you?"_

"Hell no, but dying isn't going to help Keth. I'm awake and thinking straight, we can't die." John stated with conviction.

" _Assured. Good."_

* * *

Thirty minutes passed, the guys saw a few small shuttle like ships leave the base before cloaking, not unexpected but useful to know. Sei returned to the group soon after.

Sei's kind are known as the Hylotl, a race of bipedal fish people. Hylotl females tend to be smaller than any other race's in frame in close proximity to an Avien's, Sei is thinner than both of her male companions but stands only a few inches shorter than them. Hylotl are the most alien looking of any race other than, again, the Avien with their elongated heads, giving them a more lizard like look.

Sei's dark blue skin blended well with the night, along with the dark gray color that moved from her chin down to her past her collar. Sei dressed in a darker set of armor known for being used by Apex rogues for easy movement that worked in subterfuge against Miniknog dictatorship. She liked to keep her vision unhindered as her best asset are her three ruby red eyes, so she kept the hood down showing her two fins that ran along the temples of her skull loose behind her head like a veil.

Hylotl are known to have lived through peace for generations, but are not naive to the act of combat and war. There kind has only known war once ages ago against the Floran. The Hylotl had the advantage in tech and weaponry, but the Floran had numbers and they pushed the fish people off their homeworld. After the war there was still much animosity between the two, but the Hylotl were passive aggressive, while the Floran were openly blunt about their disdain for them.

The war was far before Sei's hatching, but she grew to hate the Floran more than most Hylotl. Keth would tell others that he attacked her first when they first met, but Sei remembered differently.

Sei was visiting a small village for supplies when she found the Floran sleeping alone under the sun, apparently he was left alone while Freewall and John went to the market as Keth was still learning how to deal with other species. All the training of self control disappeared as Sei was filled with rage and went to kill the monster with her blade.

The Floran and Hylotl fought viciously before John and Freewall stopped them, they assumed that Keth was the one that attacked not giving either a chance to explain the situation. In the end Keth was forced to apologize, Sei wasn't sure if the Floran truly believed he was the aggressor or if he didn't want to cause problems for his companions.

Somehow Sei found herself working with the group, and over time she learned more about Keth. She still held a dislike for the plant people but in the time she has gotten to know him, she gained respect for the Floran.

Keth was rude and Sei learned to tolerate it, but one day when fighting off bandits Sei inadvertently saved him from a strike. Almost as if a switch had been switched the Floran became closer to her to a similar likeness to a cat, like giving her dead animals telling her that they were gifts. He still called her things like "stupid fish" but it always held a more playful tone than before.

She used to think of them as evil monsters, but she learned that he was nothing more than a child taught only one way to live and was slowing learning more about the universe he lived in.

As she learned that she felt shame over time for almost killing someone out of anger for something they had no control over. She tried to atone for it by teaching Keth but even then it didn't feel like it was enough, but she wouldn't stop trying.

"Anything?" John asked hopefully.

"No weaknesses. It's all the same as this side. Though I did find our Novakid." Sei confirmed as a Novakid Stepped into view.

"Howdy." The female Novakid said with a distinctive flanging effect, giving her voice an almost vibrating sound as she tipped her cowboy hat.

Novakids share the same problem that Glitch do but in a different aspect. Glitch are robots that can't show emotion through facial expressions, while Novakids are living stars that have a symbol where a face would be. Except for the previously mentioned flanging effect, Novakid voices are pretty normal and varied.

Novakids have similar figures to humans, but unlike a human they don't have anything inside of them other than the energy of a small star contained by the aforementioned symbol. Not much is known about the origin of the Novakid as they themselves don't know.

The Novakid that stood in front of them glowed yellow through the gap between her hat and the bandana wrapped around her neck and sported the symbol of luck known as Gibo Auja on her face. Good thing too, they could use all the luck they could get.

Another good thing was that they were far enough away that the Novakid's glow wasn't going to be a problem. They do have the heat of a small star but it's well contained in their forms.

"Glad you didn't do anything reckless before we showed up, Ratel." John joked as he waved to the Novakid before he returned to watching the base.

"Yea'... no problem." The Novakid, named Ratel, hesitatingly said as she began to pace back a bit, whistling quietly.

Freewall immediately caught on. " _Inquire. What did she do?"_ He asked Sei who knelt next to the guys.

"I caught her trying to light a stick of dynamite." Sei plainly put.

John looked back at Ratel, and though no one could tell, he had bewilderment look on his face.

"You just planned on blasting your way in, and isn't that stuff like a thousand years old?"

"Gotta love the classics." She said in a cheerful tone.

"Bullets are a classic, dynamite is literally one of the most unstable explosives on earth." John said while trying to stop a rising headache.

Ratel let out a short laugh. "An' that's why it's a classic."

John really didn't want to get into it, he still hasn't had enough sleep and he wasn't sure more would help anyway. He wasn't even sure where the Novakid found the stuff, it wasn't exactly plentiful. Now that he thought about it, it wasn't even a Novakid classic!

" _Inform. We only have an hour or two till sundown."_ Freewall declared.

The group went quiet as they tried to think of a plan, excluding the Novakid that was slowing reaching for her dynamite sticks, ready to suggest her original plan.

"Dark Disguise?" Sei Proposed.

"Dark what-now?" Ratel quickly responded, removing her hand from her side.

" _Impressed. That might work. Order. Go get it, we'll keep an eye out."_ Freewall said.

Sei nodded before running back as to not gain attention when beamed back to their ship.

Ratel tapped John on the shoulder causing him to turn around once more. "What was the fish gal talkin' 'bout?" She asked

"Oh, you've never met a shadow?" John questioned.

"Only the one that follows you folk 'round, partner."

"Not surprised. They'd probably keep clear of you. Well, best I can put it is a race only known as Shadows, they're the kind of thing a Floran would want to be if it had more teeth and enjoyed sunlight. They're creatures that are completely black and have an aura of smoke that comes off of them. You'll only see them on planets that rarely get any light if at all, and even then they avoid the light like the plague, they're as non-hostile as it gets. We went spelunking through a cave on one such planet and found some kind of ruin that had a strange chest seating in the center of the room."

"What's so strange about a chest?"

" _Ominous. The Shadows avoid light, the chest seemed to absorb it."_ Freewall input, while watching over the base as they talked.

"Yeah pretty much. We planned to leave it alone before our friend Keth got excited at the idea of treasure and busted it open before any of us could get a word out." John explained, taking a second to contain a chuckle at the memory. But almost became depressed at the thought of his Floran friend being alone somewhere.

"Anyway." He sighed trying to calm himself. "We found a suit that is just as dark as the Shadows and it should come in handy here, usually we have Keth handle this stuff but Sei is just as skilled."

"Ah, you got a look o' sadness about you. You lose that person or somethin', friend?" Ratel asked curiously.

John suppressed a sigh as he had already explained this mission was to save that friend a few weeks ago, but he knew that it wasn't worth getting mad over. Novakids are known for being one of the most inventive organic races, but they are even more known for their forgetfulness. Not that they could help it, only things that interest them stick, otherwise they're bound to forget.

"Eh, didn't really lose, he's far away but we're hoping to get him back soon." John half lied, not really knowing why.

"Well, I wish you the best of luck, partner." Ratel sincerely said with another tip of her hat.

Forgetful, but always honest.

"Thanks, we're going to need it."

* * *

Freewall kept a constant watch on the base for any unusual activity, but just like the clockwork everything ran smoothly, even as the moon began to rise. Sei returned earlier with the suit in hand but they needed to wait for it to be as dark as possible.

"This is bullshit!" John blurted louder than Freewall would have liked.

" _Warning. Would you keep it down."_ He demanded as he turned back to see John, Ratel, and Sei sitting on the ground with a deck of cards.

Even earlier, and unsurprisingly, the Novakid was getting bored, as they are also known for their short attention span. So John decided to distract her with a Novakid's favorite pastime.

Gambling.

The biggest mistake was when John somehow got Sei involved. Everyone knows that out of every race in the universe that humans came in second for worst poker face, only just being beaten by the Floran. Probably would have been a good idea for him to keep his helmet on.

John had thrown his hand of cards on the ground as the Novakid began to pull a small pile of pixels towards herself.

"Better luck next time, partner." Ratel teased, sounding quite pleased with herself.

Freewall scanned the system before they landed and learned that the nights on the planet were extremely short but unusually dark. That would be because of the moon itself. The moon was pitch black and didn't reflect any light. The base was lit up well enough, but there were some pockets of darkness that one could move through, but once in the base the suit wouldn't help at all.

The suit is excellent for stealth but if one wants to go completely unseen they would need to only wear the suit. For Keth that wouldn't be much of a problem with his claws and unusual strength, but Sei should be able to handle it.

Thirty minutes passed as the night began to darken and John was running low on his personal funds.

" _Inform. Time to go."_ Freewall called turning around to see Ratel counting her pixels.

Sei was meditating by a tree wearing the Dark disguise, if he didn't know she was there he would have had trouble finding her.

And John, sulking as he leaned on the same tree.

"I'm pretty sure there is a saying against playing cards with a Novakid." Sei deadpanned as she stood up.

"Shut up." He grunted as he pushed off the tree.

"'Poker, like space travel, is all good and fun till you run into a sun.' Think I heard 'em metal folk say that once." Ratel stated with a chuckle as she put away her well earned pixels.

" _Inquire. Everyone know their part?"_ Freewall asked.

Suddenly the air around them seemed to change. Everyone, including the Novakid, seemed more professional. They all knew what they were in for and they were ready.

"My task is to undermine their security by disabling the shielding and drones. I will not disappoint." The Hylotl explained smoothly.

"I'm on over-watch, as soon as we know the shields are down I'm covering the sky and dirt." The Human reassured, letting his military background show as he removed his rifle from his back. "They won't know what hit them."

"I'll be carryin' quiet's gear, when the shields go down I'm to go in an' start a ruckus while gettin' her stuff back to her." The Novakid expressed as her fingers were already dancing along her revolver ready for a showdown.

" _Purposeful. Until the shields do go down, we will be making sure that they have more than just her to deal with."_ Freewall directed as he pulling his plasma crossbow from his back.

The plan had been laid out, now all they need to do is execute it with efficiency.

* * *

It didn't take long for Sei to pull close to the base using her dash ability that allowed her to close short distances with a quick burst of speed, less flashy than the blink ability. It was easy for her to avoid the few spot lights that lit the area. Machines are cheap labor but predictable, they always followed a pattern.

She made it to a part of the wall with the least amount of light undetected and quietly put her back to it as she heard movement above her. As soon as the sounds became distant she moved away from the wall and took a running stance towards it.

The shield that protects the base and surrounding area is completely unnoticeable until stuck with the proper amount of force, so she wouldn't be able to claw her way up like a Floran could. Even if there wasn't any shielding the wall was made of durasteel and was smooth all the way up.

So she needed to rely on her other implanted mod to scale the wall.

She broke into a sprint using dash to pick up speed. Right as she would have smacked into the wall she kicked up against it. As if gravity switched she ran up the wall making little sound before she allowed her feet to slip and grab the edge. Sei slowing peeked over the wall to see the inner courtyard.

Unsurprising, it was much brighter than the outer part but less paid attention to. Every robotic guard seemed fixated on the forest, not looking away even as they walked along the wall. Before she could move over the wall she needed to signal the others.

With her free hand she moved her mask up. Sei opened her mouth and removed what seemed to be a small pistol in a similar design to a flare gun. Sei disliked carrying things in her mouth, but it was needed because if she carried it on her side she would risk being seen, as even a chance of light reflection could give her away.

She put the mask back in place before pointing the firearm into the air. When she pulled the trigger the gun made a barely audible low pop sound as it fired. Not waiting any longer Sei propelled herself over the wall, landing in a shaded area out of sight.

She looked up to the sky as a small flash appeared high above, drawing many of the guards to look towards the sky.

But it wasn't meant for them.

A second after the flash one of the many drones was blasted out of the sky.

That's when more gunfire erupted from outside the wall.

"Lockdown! We're under attack!" One of the guards shouted as they returned fire, only to be sent back from a plasma bolt striking their face.

While the enemy was distracted Sei could easily move behind them, but with the call for lockdown she needed to hurry. She remembered where she saw the ships leave from and moved there to what looked like a horizontal hangar. The platform started to descend and with it, the doors of the hangar began to close.

Without missing a beat, Sei slipped through the closing doors and landed on the platform.

There was no going back now.

The walls began to get wider as the platform continued to descend revealing the rest of the hangar below her. Sei moved to the edge of the ship elevator seeing the rest of the hangar below.

The hangar had to be at least four floors from the surface, which meant she didn't need to check the other floors above as it would be a tactical disadvantage to have the shielding unit close to the surface.

She needed to get out of the hangar. A lot of robotic guards were moving out to most likely reinforce the surface but still not enough for her to take unarmed.

So the first things she needed to do was get armed and get some answers.

* * *

"This will only hurt for a second." A gruff Apex voice stated, as he held up a syringe filled with a sickly green liquid inside.

The only response he got was a panic muffled from a completely naked Apex that laid in front of the doctor, struggling against his metal restraints. The room was well lit but was uncommonly small, only leaving room for a few people and who ever was on the metal table. There were a few other doctors around but this was his test. Two of his guards stood close by the exit in case of aggravation.

"Yes, I'm sure you understand that we can't put you on sedatives as I need to see the reaction but don't worry, I'm confident in this concoction." He said excitedly with no hint of sympathy.

The doctor held the Apex's wrist that had been prepared earlier and started to feel for a blood vessel. As soon as he found it he placed the needle against the skin. The Apex struggled hopelessly against the feeling of the needle.

"Doctor Emrik, there is a situation. I need you to move to-" A voice started to say over the speakers in the room.

"What did I say about interrupting my research!" The doctor burst out in frustration.

There was a sigh before the voice continued over the speaker. "I remember Doctor, but you hired me to protect this base and it's assets. You're one of them, I need you to move to the lower levels."

The doctor agreed with this statement. He was the catalyst of the entire project, without him the Apex wouldn't be so close to perfection. The Apex government drop his experiments because they were afraid of his advancements. So what if the subjects died? every death leads to a new discovery, moving them closer to perfection. The Apex dealt with death for advancement way before he showed up but they grew afraid with how much progress he was willing to strive for.

"Yes, you are correct. This shouldn't take much longer." Emrik said as he calmed himself.

Without a response Dr. Emrik went back to his patient. He could see the fear and pleading in his eyes.

"Don't worry, together we will find perfection." He assured with an insane look in his eyes as the needle broke skin and the green liquid was slowly pushed into the Apex's system.

There was no immediate reaction and the doctor was starting to become impatient but suddenly the Apex began to spasm in agony as his skin slowly went from the usual Apex dark brown to a sickening pale. If there wasn't a gag the doctor was sure the subject would be screaming at the torment his body was being put through. Emrik grabbed a clipboard and started jotting down everything he could.

If it wasn't for his doctor's mask with the garments he wore, he would have had a visible toothy grin that would put every doctor in the room with him on edge. They could all see the look in his eyes, they were there for the same reason he was, but everyday it seemed the look in his eyes became more intense.

After a few more twitches the body seized all movement, falling completely still.

Emrik pointed to one of the other doctors with his pen. "Check the subjects pulse." He ordered.

The anxious doctor approached the still body and moved their hand to the subjects neck. As soon as the gloved fingers touched the Apex's neck the body's hand shot up breaking free from the restraint with little resistance as it grasped the junior doctor's neck. The other doctors moved as far back as they could while shouting for the guards.

The guards quickly pulled free their Electro Batons and rushed to help.

It was too late as the monstrous Apex ripped the doctor's neck out causing a spray of blood, before tearing itself free from the rest of its restraints to stand while pulling free the gag from its mouth. It released a pained roar as it backhanded one of the guards that approached but the other one managed to stick the Apex with the forked end of the baton causing the them to seize up and fell to the floor.

Emrik released a sigh as he stopped writing done his notes. "Such a disappointment, but still..."

Another failure, but he could feel it. He was getting close, it wouldn't be long before the Apex reach their true potential.

"Put it with the others... and clean up this mess." He said with disgust.

* * *

"Sir, why don't we push them?"

"Because their sniper is taking down anyone that approaching from the front. I've sent men and drones around but they were taken down by a Novakid. No mistaking the glow." The commander told his subordinate, while looking over the footage the drone captured before being destroyed.

"A Novakid? Why would a Novakid be here of all places?"

The commander was getting tired of the questions but that one was one he was asking himself. Novakids aren't known for seeking things and for the most part they don't really do groups.

"We have a situation to keep on top of and these questions are pointless, they're here and attacking. That's all the matters, understood?" He said with annoyance.

"Yes sir, sorry sir." The subordinate stammered out.

It was really getting annoying. He wasn't a real commander but the men that work under him act like he is. Kent is a relatively old human who considered himself a mercenary for hire, but that soon fell through as he found himself working for a mad ape for six years and counting. The doctor made sure to hire a bunch ex-soldiers who could do nothing but follow orders, almost all of them had something wrong with them and there's not really any wars to be fighting.

Still, the pay was good and getting better with each passing year. The doctor could do what he wanted as long as he stayed alive. Of course, that was easier said than done as the doctor had ordered Kent's men to only use stun batons when dealing with his "failures" as he didn't want them killed.

The robots helped but they could only do programmed task and the good doctor only wanted them for outer defences. It took way too long for Kent to convince Emirk to put some of them inside the base as a precaution. Whoever was attacking their base made him have to move some of those from the hangar to the surface.

"Where's the doctor?" Kent asked.

"We got confirmation that he's on his way here."

"Good. You're dismissed." He said receiving a salute as the guard left.

Kent was having troubling trying to figure out why they're being attacked. It couldn't be one of the other groups they did business with, they wouldn't risk hurting an asset. He had records of every mission that went out to collect pretty much anything from rations to new subjects but he only found successful missions.

Except for one.

The doctor wanted him to send men to a strange energy reading. Kent tried to tell him that if he picked it up others would have as well but he insisted that it would help with his experiments if it was what he thought it was. In the end the modified remote control Oogler was damaged, compromised and whatever that energy from that planet was died out.

It sounded pretty basic for a failed mission but he decided to go over debriefing and the footage the Oogler recorded and wasn't surprised that the one controlling the Oogler decided to see if he could take on a group, but something about the group bothered him.

More exactly was the blue armored man with the sniper rifle. It couldn't have been him but the weapon was the same, but Kent knew he was dead, killed on earth when it was destroyed.

"Glint." He whispered to himself.

Glint, one of the best snipers in the USCM. Old rumors said the last thing you saw before you died was the flash of his scope, hence the nickname. No one knew his real name but he was one of the most feared snipers to the enemy before he turned on USCM. The nickname was more of a joke on their side as the guy was extremely friendly, but everyone knew that he was dangerous.

The one thing that the Oogler caught was a Floran being knocked into a portal. If Kent was right and that was Glint, he knows that he would want revenge if that was his friend.

Only one way to confirm his thoughts. He switched his console's comms to the channel for the surface team. At the same time doctor Emrik entered the main security office.

"What is of such importance that you had to pull me from my work?" The doctor snapped.

Kent only turned his head to glare at Emrik. "We're under attack." Before turning back to the console. "East wall, copy?"

"Copy." A voice quickly responded.

"What's the situation?" Kent asked.

"Can't see the shooter and the drones are just getting shot out of the sky. We sent another flanking party but they've failed to report in. Bastards taken out a few of the turrets before they could fold in. A few men tried to peek and were hit instantly, guy's a fuckin' ace shot."

"East south east from the wall about a thousand meters out from your position there should be a solid treeline on a hill. If what you're saying is true that means he's using plasma rounds, cuts off some of the drag and hits the target faster. "

"I see the treeline si-" The last thing Kent and the doctor heard, from what they could guess, was the soldier hitting the floor and hearing echo of the shot soon after.

"Dumbass." Kent grunted as he rubbed his eyes.

"Seem that this situation is held outside. The vermin you seem so scared of is stuck out there, they can't get in. I see no problem as long as _you_ wait them out." Emrik sneered as he took a seat.

As much as Kent hated to admit it, the doctor was right. Just attacking outside wouldn't net many results other than wasted ammo and a chance of getting shot. Glint wouldn't do that, the guy was different than everyone else that worked for USCM. Kent didn't know how to put it but the guy was calmer than the other guys when not on a mission and when things didn't go right, like most missions, he could adapt.

If Glint and his team came to attack they would have scouted, no doubt. So why would he just attack out of nowhere if he wanted... to... get... in...

"Shit." Kent whispered to himself.

He started getting into contact with guards that held the elevators and surface entrances while checking cams at the same time. So far everything was accounted for. So where else could a infiltrator get in?

Not the vents, too many sensors. Hangars would be a better bet if they got in before lockdown. There was six hangars in total and he brought up the cameras for all of them, each with a wide few of the whole hangar.

One, clear. Two, clear. Three, clear. Four...

Kent went back to hangar three, it was the wrong kind of clear. Nobody was there. He couldn't see much with the wide view so he zoomed in to get details. There was a large crate nearby with a pair of boots sticking out behind it with blood beginning to pool around the corner of the crate.

"Dammit." He muttered.

He quickly rewinded the footage about ten minutes, about the time he called the doctor down. One of the lifts was coming down. Kent was like a hawk as he watched for anything a guard would miss normally. The camera barely picked up a blur dashing down from the lift behind the same crate.

One of the guards must have noticed it because they drew their sidearm as they approached the crate. Just as Kent expected the guard was quickly pulled behind the crate. A minute passed and than another two minutes, Kent noticed something odd. He rewound to the point when the guard was pulled. The video glitched for just a second right as the guard was pulled.

The video was tampered with but how? Kent contacted the main people in charge of watching the feeds. He was able to speak with the man or rather Glitch that was in command.

"Are you sure?"

" _Assured. I'm confident Commander, that the feeds were not obstructed by any of your men."_ The Glitch captain stated.

Glitches are terrible liars, so if he had to put his trust in anyone it would be a Glitch.

"We have a intruder on the fourth floor, I need your team to head up there and clear it out." Kent commanded.

" _Eager. Understood Commander, we'll find them."_ The Glitch said before disconnecting.

* * *

Sei quickly moved down the halls as she checked over the rifle she took from the guard she questioned. The human didn't know much but she was able to arm herself with a sidearm pistol, a sword and sheath, and the aforementioned rifle with strap.

She needed to find the floor with the shield generator but that was turning out to be easier said than done. She was able to follow the signs to find the elevator but as she turned another corner she immediately took cover with the corner as she was shot at.

"Intruder!" An Apex voiced called out.

Sei peeked around the corner spotting at least seven figures with three of them in from with riot shields with one man behind each of them, the last one in the back looked like the one in charge of the group. She quickly pulled back as a few shots hit her cover.

" _Warning. Throw your weapons to the ground and come out with your hands up or you will force us to take lethal action."_ A Glitch voice explained, most likely the leader she saw.

The Hylotl allowed the rifle to hang from her back as she pulled the sword and pistol from her sides. The sword had a shielding modification so all she needed to do was use it like a riot shield and push the line the guards made. She wouldn't give up so easy.

"I'm afraid that's impossible." Sei declared as she calmed herself before the storm.

" _Acknowledged. Agreed."_

With that Sei held the sword in a reverse grip and held it up in front of her activating the shield as she turned the corner.

Before she could even get a shot off she saw the leader aim his rifle, but not at her. Three shot went off as the men standing behind the shields fell to the floor. The shield wielders dropped their shields as they tried to reach for their sidearms.

Sei blasted one of them in the back as they took their attention off her before the Glitch shot the last shield man and retook aim at her. Sei was still a good fifteen feet from the Glitch with her shield still active. They both stood there aiming at each other. From the armor Sei could tell she wouldn't break through the armor in enough shots and with her shield up she could close the distance but she wasn't sure of the Glitch's skill in hand to hand combat and she didn't have any armor.

A stalemate. If either made a move there was no telling who would win.

"Why did you kill them?" She asked not letting any emotion show.

In truth it bothered her, just to kill the men you've been working with so suddenly. There had to be a reason.

" _Honest. They were in the way. Inquire. Did the rebel Apex send you?"_ The Glitch asked.

She was put off by the coldness in that statement but she kept it to herself.

"No, but we are here for the leader of this base, he has much to answer for." She wasn't sure how much she could share but she needed to try to convince him to leave.

" _Speculation. You're here for revenge?"_ The Glitch asked.

"Not revenge, he holds the answers to the loss of a friend." Sei explained, not realizing some of her grief flowed through her words.

The Glitch's grip seemed to loosen as it the end of the barrel lowered a few inches.

" _Prediction. You're here to shut down the shielding."_ The Glitch stated to which Sei simply nodded.

" _Proposition. I need him dead, you need him alive, your men get to talk and you hand him over after, deal?"_ The Glitch offered.

"And what's to stop you from shooting me in the back." She deadpanned.

" _Rhetorical. If someone pays me to kill you for good reason? Determined. Nothing."_

Sei could see that he meant it. Only question was what "good reason" meant to this Glitch.

"May I have your name?" The best way to know a man is by their name.

" _Compromise. You may call me Crimson King, feel free to shorten it."_

"Okay Crimson, my name is Sei. Which way to the shielding device?" Sei asked as she lowered her firearm but kept the shield up.

" _Confident. Follow me."_

With that, Crimson turned around and started moving down the hall, Sei followed close behind.

Crimson King, why did that sound familiar to her?

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

 **For people who follow my other story, surprise!**

 **For people who don't, it's nothing to worry about as things will be somewhat explained here.**

 **For people who are completely lost, just know that I wanted to somewhat have my stories connected.**

 **I have a question for you all, I could either have this part continue through to the next chapter completely or-**

 **I could use half of next chapter to end this somewhat for later and continue with Keth.**

 **Let me know**


	9. A clear head

**This has been a long time coming.**

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

"How much further?" Sei questioned.

The Glitch and Hylotl stood waiting in an elevator, the third one they've been in. Sei was getting worried, not for herself but for her companions. She's confident that they could hold out for a while, but she wasn't sure how long.

" _Inform. This is the last one, Emrik despises the idea of having an elevator that could access every floor. Inquire. Who is it you are trying to find?"_ Crimson suddenly asked.

"Didn't think you would be one to care." She remarked. Not that she would be wrong in that assumption, the Glitch had been cold but not unhelpful.

" _Assure. Just want to make sure I'm not making a mistake, getting this cover was not easy and I'd rather it not all go to waste."_ Last thing he wanted to do was help save some monarch. Not that he couldn't just kill them after.

Sei looked to the top corner of the elevator where a very obvious camera was placed. She would have questioned the cover still being intact, but it seemed that this Glitch has some tricks up its sleeves.

"Hm," She simply nodding, "If you must know he's a Floran, nothing of high esteem, but a good friend."

" _Bewildered. A Floran, huh? Unapologetic. I doubt they are still alive."_

Sei felt a sudden pang of anger, but quickly smothered it before she spoke.

"And why may that be?" She asked coldly, not letting her emotions get the better of her.

" _Interpret. Your kind teach Hylotl to think of Floran as monsters, and you're not completely wrong. Explain. Floran are pack creatures, unlike us they are driven by instinct more than reason. Clarify. When a Floran loses their pack they sometimes find themselves with other races, don't confuse this for friendship, they can't live on their own for long and they'll always long for their original tribe."_

" _Justify. It's the whole reason they have Greenfingers, it's not because of some urge that's hardwired into their DNA, but because every pack needs a leader. Specify. Any Floran can become a Greenfinger, they just choose not to when another is already in place. Simplify. Anyone smarter than them can lead them, but alone they will do things most have never seen a Floran do; run away, cower, attack randomly. Remark. A pack may seem to attack randomly, but they are some of the smartest hunters I've seen, but when they're alone. Callous. It makes them easier to kill."_

Maybe he was right, She's seen how Keth acted. He always followed John like he was the greenfinger of the group. Maybe Keth would be happier with his own kind... but that wouldn't stop her. She would fight for him because he would do the same, whether it be from instincts or actual friendship didn't matter to her. The point was that she would not allow herself to doubt him.

"You're wrong, he's stronger than that. He may be a Floran but he is a caring soul above anything else. Even alone he would find a way." The strength and emotion behind those words were not left unheard.

The Glitch didn't give an immediate response. If anything he seemed at a loss for words.

Suddenly a ding sounded as the elevator came to a stop. The Glitch and Hylotl readied their weapons. Their motives are different but Crimson at the very least felt that he understood hers a bit better.

* * *

The feeling was getting worse. Keth had to fight his instincts every step they took closer to the school. He wouldn't call it fear, he'd call it caution. Floran don't fear anything, Keth would stab anyone that said otherwise. Knowing something is dangerous is different to fear.

The humans moved ahead of him while he followed close behind, only seperating to take care of any infected that might follow behind them. It was a short distance, but Keth noticed something about Joel that separated him from any human, or in this case any other race, he's seen.

Keth knows that Floran senses are more keen than those of other species, but the way Joel moved was very familiar to him. When a Floran hunted they either stuck to the trees to spot the prey or they stayed low to the ground to track the scent, but if they couldn't see or smell their prey, they would listen.

Floran believe that when one stayed low to the ground they could hear even the faintest of sounds or could catch even the faintest scent, while keeping themselves undetectable. The way Joel moved reminded Keth of his sapling days when he followed other hunters.

Without really realizing it, Keth was no longer fighting his instincts.

He was following a fellow hunter.

They took out most of the fungus humans in their path and were closing in on the school, but they came up to two busses that sat near the school wall. They were set up in a way that kept the space between them about the size of a hallway near the building, with only a small path through to a fence near the front of the school.

"We're almost there." Joel informed as they made their way closer.

That's when all hell broke loose.

Some came from under the buses, others started climbing over a nearby fence, and must came crashing through the school windows. There were too many scents, Keth couldn't identify them at all.

"Infected!" Bill shouted as those very infected started pouring into the area.

"Ellie, stay behind me!" Joel yelled, he brought up his shotgun to the incoming infected, popping one in the chest that got too close.

"They're everywhere!" Ellie exclaimed.

Keth was quiet. Normally he would have already been on top of the first prey that he could see, but his instincts were at him again, telling him this wasn't a hunt he would come out on top of. He needed to escape.

A few of the infected started closing on Ellie and Joel from behind. All hesitation left Keth as he sprong at the closest infected. The infected had no time to react as it was knocked to the ground before the Floran grabbed its head and slammed it into the concrete. He then drew his knife and stabbed the second one in the chest multiple times before pushing it into the third one, forcing the other to the ground leaving Keth to bring his heel down atop its head.

There were too many. Bill took out several infected with his machete and 9mm pistol, but it seemed the more they took out, twice that would take their place.

"Bill!" Joel shouted as he smashed a Clicker in the face with the butt of his gun.

"I'm working on it!" Bill shouted back as he beheaded a Runner, while looking for anyway past the fence or a way into the school.

Bill wasn't the only one. Keth was covering Joel and Ellie's back and was looking for anyway into the school or type of advantage.

But neither of them that saw a way out.

"Up there! A ladder!" Ellie shouted as she pointed out a bus flanked by two fences near the front of the school with the rear facing them and as stated, a ladder directly on top.

The swarm of infected made it almost impossible for any of them to get to it safely.

Joel blasted a Runner's head off and pumped his shotgun before going for another shot.

The only sound that followed was a small click. "I'm running low!" He informed as he switched to a revolver.

Keth knew that the other races rely heavily on their guns, so he was okay with the quick decision he made. He leg swiped the feet of an infected as he pulled his backpack off and pulled out his Adler shotgun.

" _Human!"_ Keth called, causing Joel to turn towards him. " _Kill quicker!"_ He then tossed the shotgun to Joel before delivering a swift kick to the infected's skull he downed earlier, using the sharp digits of his foot to stab into its head.

Joel caught the gun with his off-hand and fired off the last few shots in his revolver before holstering it and using the shotgun.

Keth only had one shot, the humans were at risk. Without fail he ran past the infected, towards the bus, within five feet of the bus he leaped over infected and managed to get his torso above the bus before pushing himself up the rest of the way.

He promptly pushed the ladder down giving the humans a way up.

" _Move meat thingsss!"_ He shouted over the screams of infected.

The humans quickly made their way to the ladder. Ellie was the first, then Bill. As Joel started to climb the ladder as a couple of infected were closing in.

"Hurry Joel!" Ellie implored.

Keth immediately grabbed onto the top of the ladder and pulled while pushing down causing the ladder to swing outward and upward catching one of infected in the chin with the last step. Keth isn't as strong as most of his kind, but even the weakest Floran were stronger than the average human, so even lifting a fully grown male was little trouble.

Joel moved across the ladder onto the bus while the infected tried to claw their way up to no avail. As soon as Joel made it Keth put the ladder where it originally was, catching a familiar scent on the ladder, similar to the tree house. It was definitely human and recent.

The big human took a second to catch his breath, Keth was surprised he lived this long being so large."We need to keep moving." He said as he moved to the front of the bus.

"We're okay, we just need to get to the hood of the truck." Bill explained, sounding a bit worried or out of breath.

Keth took a second to look down at the infected. Is that what Sei saw when she looked at him? Hungry... dangerous, relentless... It left a wretched feeling in the pit of his stomach, one filled with hate, but for what? He held pride for his race, but was this how everyone else saw them?

"Hey, you coming?" Ellie called out as she jumped down onto the hood of the bus.

Keth turned his head to her and nodded before turning back to the infected and letting out a threatening hiss. Not that he thought they would react, but it made him feel better.

At that moment he noticed more infected trying to break through the fence.

They weren't done yet.

Keth turn and ran to the humans, jumping from the top of the bus to the ground. " _Need inssside, now!"_ Keth shouted.

Bill ran past the truck to the doors it crashed next to and repeatedly pulled on the handles to no avail.

"It's locked!" He definitely sounded worried now.

Keth moved past Bill to the door and was ready to rip the door from its hinges.

"No! We might not have a way to keep 'em out!" Joel warned.

Then what were they suppose to do? Keth looked back at the human hoping for an answer before seeing a Clicker push through a gap in the fence. Keth gave a instinctual warning growl to which the Clicker completely ignored and started running at Joel and Ellie.

"Get back!" Joel ordered Ellie as he moved her behind him and pulled out another pistol similar to Bill's.

Before he could pull the trigger the Floran charged at the infected and stuck his knife in between the fungal plating that covered its face before pushing it to the ground.

" _Find way."_ Keth calmly put, before tossing him something wrapped in cloth.

Joel noticed the Floran take an almost feral like stance. He lowered into a wide crouch, arms off to his sides with his knife in one hand, almost daring the infected to try to pass him. Joel immediately turned around to the sound of more infected. They were clawing through another fence. He already used all the shells in the shotgun Floran gave him, so he couldn't help on either front.

Joel undid the cloth to reveal a hand full of shotgun shells. He would have to rely on the plant. It wasn't trust, Joel told himself, it was mutually assured survival.

Only two or three at a time could get through the ever growing hole in the fence, more than enough for Keth. He could hear more behind him, but he had to trust the human to handle them. He could not waver, not even for a second.

The first one was a Runner that he simply stabbed in the chest before pushing the corpse off his knife. The second one was slower, a Clicker. A Runner pushed past it to which Keth threw his knife, but not at the Runner. The blade caught the Clicker in the shoulder, off setting its shambling, causing it to fall to the ground.

Right when the Runner was within close range Keth clawed it across the face causing it to stagger. Before it could recover the hunter seized it by the throat, digging his claws in as he stabbed his other clawed hand into its gut and lifted it into the air before swiftly bringing it back down head first, crushing it.

As quickly as that happened the Clicker managed to get back on its feet as another clicker moved with it towards him.

"Found a window, cover me!" Bill ordered, though neither Joel nor Keth didn't pull their attention away from the infected.

For Keth, it was mostly because his knife was still inside one of them.

Keth had to hold them off and leave as soon as Bill had the window open. With that in mind he sprinted towards the one with his knife. It attempted to grab at him only to catch air as Keth dodged to the side and delivered a clawed hand across its face, removing the fungal plating, revealing its bloodshot eyes.

The second infected managed to grab him from behind only for him to grapple its arm and throw it over his shoulder, Slamming it into the first one knocking them both down.

Keth quickly brought his heel down on the first one's head before lifting his other foot to crush the second as it screeched at him. Only to be silenced as his heel crushed through its skull as well.

Keth retrieved his knife as three Runners made it through the fence. They rushed him all at once, almost tripping over each other just trying to get to him.

The first one practically jumped at him, only for him to step back out of reach and with just one swing of his knife tore a huge gash in its throat. He kicked the body into the second as the third closed in.

It tried to grab him only for Keth to wrap his arm around its own and shanked it three times in the chest.

The second one recovered and started to swing wildly as it approached to which Keth simply grabbed one of the arms that veered toward him and twisted it. The infected turned with it, leaving its arm behind its back, but Keth didn't stop. With another pull Keth felt the bone snap.

At most Keth could normally dislocate an arm if he applied the same force to a human, but he felt it snap like a twig. Keth knew that bones were usually more durable than that.

The Runner showed little sign of pain as it tried to break free from his grip.

"Windows open, get movin'!" Bill shouted, but Keth saw five more infected pushing through the fence.

Keth felt that same anger starting to spill over inside of him. He's killed many of them already. They should fear him! He's the predator, not the prey!

He could take them, he'd kill every last one of them and take their heads as trophies!

Keth stabbed the knife into the joint of its arm and pulled the arm completely off in a spray of blood. He kicked the infected away and tossed the arm towards the infected and snarled as the creatures continued to approach.

Did they think he was scared? He wouldn't let a single one of them past, he would gut them like fish! Slaughter them like cattle! They were nothing to him but weak flesh and bone!

"Joel!" It wasn't the name that snapped Keth out of his bloodlust, rather it was the unbridled panic in the young human's voice.

He made a promise. He couldn't let himself get distracted again. He wouldn't let another one die because of his instincts.

Without a second thought Keth circled the building.

* * *

Joel started crawling across the industrial vent that sat below the small rectangular window only to suddenly feel something grab him from behind.

"Joel!" Ellie shouted.

The second he heard clicking and the feeling of something grabbing him, he instinctively threw an elbow. It connected with a solid crack. He didn't have time to fight every infected, he continued to push towards the window.

Ellie tried to grab and pull him though as the Clicker was recovering from the sudden impact to its face. The infected didn't stop as it grabbed his ankle and it tried to pull him back. Past the Clicker she could see more infected running towards them.

Just when things were looking grim, she saw a figure come into view running towards them. It was moving fast. It practically flew into the Clicker before slamming it into the wall, smashing the front of its face flat.

It was Keth.

Joel took the moment of respite to make it through the window as Ellie helped pull him though. Joel was catching his breath as Ellie went to close the window. She watched as Keth redirected one of the incoming infected's swings as he quickly moved his knife across its throat in one fluid motion, before punching it in the chest sending it into a group of more infected.

"Hurry Keth!" She exclaimed.

Keth had his back facing the human, but without even looking, in a single movement sprang himself towards the open window backwards causing Ellie to move as he landed on all fours on their side of the glass. Ellie quickly closed the window.

"Holy shit." Was her only response as she tried to catch her own breath before looking back to the window. "Uh, guys, that isn't going to hold them." She warned as infected tried to break through the small window.

At the same time the main doors buckled to which the lock that held the doors in place broke with a resounding snap. Before the door could fully open both Joel and Keth threw themselves into each door, reclosing it.

"Tell me you got something!" Joel called out over the screaming infected to Bill. Ellie went between him and Keth to try to help keep the door close.

Bill moved over to the hood of the truck and pushed it open. The look on Bill's face was one of complete shock.

"It's empty." Bill almost whispered in bewilderment.

"What!?" Joel could barely hear him over the infected, but he was hoping he didn't hear right.

"It's fuckin' empty!" Bill shouted as he slammed the hood shut.

Joel heard growling next to him, he almost thought it was infected before he looked to see the Floran.

" _Too many, Floran can't hold!"_ Keth knew he had the strength to hold the door, but he could feel other parts of the door shake in places a door shouldn't shake. He couldn't hold a broken door.

The human looked like he was having trouble holding the door and, as much as he did appreciate it, the little one wasn't adding much to the effort. They didn't even get what they were there for and he could smell that same human scent all over the room, so it was safe to say Keth was thoroughly annoyed.

"Bill, where to?!" Joel asked bill, trying to keep the door shut.

"Uh." Bill looked completely lost.

"Bill, Where?!" Joel shouted louder, he needed him to concentrate.

It seemed to work, if only a little. "Anywhere but here." he sounded rattled, but at least he was coherent.

Bill moved further into the school past another set of doors.

"Ellie, go!" Joel ordered.

"Okay." Ellie quickly answered as she ran down to Bill.

Joel looked over to the Floran. "On three we haul ass." The thing didn't even look at him, but nodded as it crouched against the door, as if ready to pounce.

In that instant Joel noticed something. It wasn't new per se, it was more like he was just noticing how strong the thing was, even though it stood a foot shorter than him. Joel felt like he was holding the floodgates back, while the door barely budged for the Floran. Logically it should be considered a bigger threat. He _should_ be cautious around it.

So why was his gut giving him the opposite feeling?

"One..." Another growl, he really couldn't tell what it was thinking.

"Two..." He looked to side at the sound of glass cracking and could see the infected banging on the window.

"Three!"

The second that word left his mouth he bolted for the next double doors. For a moment he didn't see Floran, until it darted past him like a mad animal. Bill looked startled and almost looked ready to shot the thing. Joel wasn't far behind and closed the doors behind him once he made it.

Again, both Keth and Joel held the doors, but to Joel's surprise the loud screaming and shouting of the infected started fading.

"They're... leaving?" Ellie stated more as a question.

"That's not how infected work kid, they'll keep climbing up your ass till they see the sun." Bill corrected.

"Then why, Bill?" Joel asked as he faced Bill.

Bill opened his mouth to respond only to suddenly aim his shotgun past Joel.

"Ah, Joel?" Ellie pointed behind him.

Joel turned around to see their green ally who was, from what he could tell, freaking out. It was holding its head, shaking uncontrollably and started growling and hissing.

Keth felt like all his senses were on fire! He's never been in a place with such a strong stench just from going into another room. His instincts were warning him in the most overwhelming way possible, trying to get him to run, to get away. The Floran immediately crouched trying to process the intense feelings.

"Hey, Hey!" He heard a male voice harshly whisper through the sound of snapping fingers.

The Floran looked up still holding its head, as if afraid of what would happen if it let go. Joel was on one knee and stopped snapping his fingers once he got its attention, he kept a couple of feet back incase it jumped at him. He had one hand on his sidearm, this whole situation was new to him and he didn't know what was going on. He's had people lose their cool, but this was a bit more intense.

"What's the problem?" Joel tried questioning, not sure if he was going to get an answer.

Keth could barely hear him over the throbbing feeling in his skull. He knew the humans wouldn't understand, he saw it in every single race. Every race had a danger sense, a feeling when something wasn't right or that they were outmatched. Floran senses were by far the strongest, but unlike the others Floran had a hard time fighting them. It was like fighting common sense.

Maybe that's why the infected left, maybe they knew that this was something else's territory. It's like prey taking shelter from the predator by running into another's territory. The beast of prey knows better. Or maybe it was intentional, run prey into bigger predator. It was all too much for Keth to even ponder.

Keth hissed trying to think straight. " _Sssomething here."_ He unintentionally growled in his own language. " _Not good, need out."_

"We need to keep movin', Joel. We don't have time for this shit." Bill informed.

Joel looked to Bill. He knew he was right, it would be better if they just got moving. He looked at Floran again. It was like a child after a nightmare, it stirred unpleasant feelings in Joel.

"You hear that? We need to go, either you come with us now or we leave you behind." Joel offered.

"We can't just leave Keth, Joel. He helped us get this far." Ellie protested.

Joel held up a hand. "Ellie." He sternly put, shutting her up instantly as he turned back to Keth.

Was that its name? Joel thought it was Floran or something as he was never offered another name for it. It was looking at the ground again, did it not hear him?

"Keth." Joel put as much authority in his voice as he could. "You said you made a promise, to protect Elliel, right?" The shaking started to subside. "I don't know what you are. Hell, I'd rather not know, but I know damn well that you can't do that when you're shaking in your boots. So make a decision, it's now or never."

Keth was trying, but he couldn't shake the feeling of impending doom. He's faced dangerous things before, as large as a house even, but that was when he had his friends backing him.

The human, who always made light of everything, but who's more experienced than he lets on. The Glitch, that always had his head on straight and kept the group organized and was one of the most passionate in the group. And the Hylotl, who always seemed cold, but was fair and always seemed to know the right thing to do in any given situation.

Now he might never see them again. It was like losing his tribe all over again.

"Ellie?" He heard a male voice question with unease.

"It's okay Joel."

Suddenly he felt something touch his shoulder. His first instinct was to strike out, that whatever it is was an enemy, but he caught the scent before he did. He looked up to see Ellie, knelt beside him with a hand on his shoulder. He was wearing a coat but he could still feel the gentle, small hand. All at once the tension throughout his body began to loosen from such a simple action.

He told himself he wouldn't let his instincts get the better of him, but not even a day later he was panicking like a sapling on their first hunt. He tried to stand causing both Ellie and Joel to stand straight and take a step back. He could feel his feet shake, that scent was driving him to either run away or hid. Instead he concentrated on Ellie, Joel, and Bill.

It was helping, but he still felt like he was ready to bolt at any moment. He needed something to tether to. Too many things smelled the same to him at the moment, so there was only one scent he could latch to.

" _Floran follow."_ He managed to whisper as he locked on to Ellie's scent. A strange mixture of infected and human that was unique enough to drown out the others.

Joel could tell that Keth was having trouble, it probably wouldn't be of much help until it got over whatever was bothering it.

"Stay close behind, I'll get us outta here." He assured, moving with Bill further into the school.

All Keth did was concentrate on Ellie and her scent. He knew it would practically make him blind to the rest of his surroundings, but it was the only way he knew how to fight his instincts.

Joel lead them down the hall a short ways before ducking when he heard clicking ahead of him.

He was at a T-shaped intersection. Across the hall to him him he could see the outline of a clicker in the light of a window, barely visible through the smog that's built up over the years. He could also hear a faint whining sound from the hall to his left, most likely a Runner, maybe more.

He motioned behind him for his group to follow as he took the left hall, not risking the chance of the infected hearing him.

Ellie followed only to glance behind her to see Keth partly hunched over. His blank, black eyes seemed to glaze over as he followed. It was kind of unnerving, but he still looked like he was pushing past whatever was bothering him.

With Bill giving direction and Joel taking point it didn't take long for them to pass through a few classrooms. A lot of the halls were blocked by chained gates or by groups of infected, they had a better chance moving around than to cause a commotion. They did run into the roaming Runner a few times, but they took them out or moved quietly enough to avoid detection.

Joel looked back every once and a while to make sure everyone was with him. Keth was slowly starting to shake again. It was clicking and hissing to itself, it was starting to fall behind, but the infected didn't seem to pay any mind to it.

Bill on the other hand couldn't stop turning back to look at it. Joel should feel the same, but it just looked scared, not feral.

As soon as they got out of another classroom Joel spotted a light down the hall.

"I think I see an exit." Joel informed.

"Then what are we waiting for? Let's move." Bill said, taking point.

Quickly and quietly they all moved down the hall towards the door. Bill pushed on the handle only for it to stop ajar. Bill looked through the crack and turned to Joel.

"Help me with this." He beckoned.

Joel moved to his side and they both started to push on the door. Whatever was holding the door shut was moving, but was making just as much noise. At about the same time they heard screaming coming from the path they took.

"Ah, Joel?" Ellie questioned.

"Shit, hurry!" Joel shouted as he put more force into the door.

As soon as it was open enough Bill pushed through the entrance, Joel waved Ellie in second. He was about to go through before he noticed Keth just standing there.

Joel watched it look around frantically. He's seen this behavior before, it wanted to run. Joel usually just let it happen, it would only slow him down if he tried to help. He couldn't save everyone, it would only put himself in unnecessary danger, but he could stop himself as he called out.

"Pull yourself together and move!" He shouted, he didn't even look back as he pushed through the gap. Whatever happens after is out of his hands.

As soon as he made it through he recognized the place as a gymnasium. He could tell it was turned into a makeshift quarantine zone. At least, what was left of it was. It was a complete mess. There was stacks of suitcases and random pieces of junk everywhere.

"Help me with this!" Bill called as soon as he saw Joel.

Joel moved to his side and started to force the barricade, that blocked them before, slowly back in place.

"Where's Keth?" Ellie asked.

As if on cue the green skinned creature pushed through what was left of the gap before it was blocked fully. After it made it through it went straight to the closest corner and just huddled into it, arms wrapped around its legs as if it thought it could disappear if it made itself as small as possible.

* * *

What was he supposed to do? Were the humans mad?! The stench was strongest here and they just wandered in, why did he follow?! The human just told him to move and he did, why?!

"What's wrong with him?" Ellie questioned with concern.

"Who cares, look." Bill pointed up past a wall of bleachers, just above was three large window, the one farthest away being completely broken. "That's our way out."

Before he could even move towards the bleachers they heard a loud bang on the opposite of the gym coming from the double doors.

"That don't sound good." Joel thought out loud.

The doors flew open, almost removing themselves from their hinges as a large figure stamped through the doorway.

Joel and Bill immediately recognized the figure, a Bloater. It was humanoid in shape but that was as close as the comparisons could go. There was not one part of the infected's skin that wasn't covered in fungus chitin. It was bloated, hence the name, and no remnant of what could have been a human face was now a cracked open skull with fungus sprouting like a blooming flower. It had the same clicky tendencies of a Clicker but with a deeper voice and much louder as it demonstrated.

"Oh, shit!" Bill shouted as he quickly removed his gas-mask from his side and put it on.

Joel followed this action himself as the Bloater starting approaching while pulling at one of the fungus pods on its body. The force of being hit by one of those could break a rib all on its own but those things also explode, spraying spores into the air infecting anything caught in the blast.

Good news was that Bloaters weren't known for their accuracy, so a gas-mask and distance was all they needed. The only other issue was the blast radius of the pods, but that's what the gas masks were for.

"What the fuck is that?!" Ellie called out.

At least that's what Joel thought until he looked over to Ellie, there was no way Bill would believe she's immune.

"It's a goddamn Bloater!" Bill quickly answered as the Bloater finally got the fungus pod removed from its shoulder.

"A what!?"

Joel immediately grabbed her by the shoulder and guided her behind cover as the pod flew past them and crashed against the wall near Keth. The only reaction from him was to cower further into the corner.

"Stay down!" Joel ordered. "I've got this." He said to no one in particular.

Joel played bait as Bill tried to pull around the large infected. They've done it before, a good blast from a shotgun to the back of the head would usually put it down. To get its attention Joel banged the metal pipe he's been carrying against anything to give it a good ring.

As long as he stayed close enough to make it move, but not too far to where it would throw a pod, he was good. Bill circled around to its back and started getting closer. Right when he was close enough bill leveled he's gun to its head.

Suddenly the infected stumbled, whether it was because of something on the ground or just from how old the infected was didn't matter. The fact was that Bill fired just as it faltered missing the shot completely.

It turned to Bill, who was cursing his luck.

"Shit!" Bill shouted as the Bloated let out a loud, husky, and gurgling moan while it tried to grab on to him.

He managed to guard against it with his shotgun, it wrestled against his grip. A Bloater is exceptionally strong so Joel only had a short amount of time to try to help. He was running low on ammo and didn't have any shotgun shells left.

So that left one option. Joel ran to the back of the infected and, with all his strength, striked the back of its knee with his pipe. It staggered, but not before practically backhanding Bill across the face as it turned around and knocked Joel back with a powerful blow.

"Joel!" That voice again, it dragged Keth out of his instincts before. This time though it only caused him to look up from his knees.

Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion as he watched the events. Bill was on the ground, trying and failing to get off the floor. Ellie, small knife in hand as she moved from her cover. Joel was leaning against a stack of suitcases, Keth couldn't see his face, but he looked like he got the air knocked out of child was going to try to help? The looming creature was making its way to Joel.

In that instance something changed. Suddenly the noise was gone; the clicking, the yelling, even his instincts seemed to calm down. For that one moment Keth felt clarity.

Joel felt like his head was spinning, he only managed to just see the Bloater lift both of its arms to strike him. Just as Joel was about to move his hands suddenly flew to his ears as a screeching sound pierced them. The infected seemed just as disorientated, stepping back as it held its misshapen head trying to block it out.

The ear piercing sound seemed to end and Joel would have tied to find out where it came from or, more importantly, deal with the infected. That was before he watched as the Floran jumping on the bloaters back, digging its knife in between the infected fungus plating of its collar. It released a pained, guttural roar as it quickly reached for the green aggressor, managing to get ahold of its wrist before throwing Keth across the room.

As Keth flew through the air upside down, he sank his claws into the ground to slow himself and skillfully land on his feet. Keth looked to the infected as it turned to face him, letting out another roar.

Keth felt alone, he's felt that way many times before; when his clan was burned to ash, when he couldn't save his friend or when he got stuck on this stupid planet. That alone would cause him to break down, but not now. For once in his life his mind didn't feel like he was letting his instincts do the fighting.

He was so used to a group that he thought it was the only way to survive, but he forgot the one singler thing that all Floran are taught.

Floran don't survive, Floran adapt.

Keth pulled his claws from the floorboards and took a defiant step forward as he released another screeching roar of his own. The bandana fell from his face as he bared his teeth at the infected.

The infected did the worst thing it could have possible done in the presence of a Floran. It took a step back.

The Floran took full advantage of its backpedal and rushed his prey. He moved close to the ground, the Bloater lifted it's foot as if to crush him. Only for the hunter to suddenly dodge back as the foot fell and then moved forward again, using the infected's knee to propel himself over its head. Keth grabbed onto the knife still inserted in the prey's shoulder, pulling it free as he landed behind the beast.

Then he struck at the most unarmored part of its body, the ankle. A quick swipe with his blade caused the infected to fall to a knee as it whirled around trying to hit Keth, only to catch nothing but air as he effortlessly jumped back out of range.

The infected faced him once more, but Keth didn't wait any longer before he pounced straight at it, knocking it on its back fully. The Floran quickly pinned one of its hands with his knife and pushed down the other with his foot. The Bloater may have been stronger than other infected, but not at this angle and not with this opponent.

The true hunter looked down at its prey as it struggled helplessly in his grasp, only being able to hopelessly wait for its end as the Floran bared both his claws and teeth. The predator was calm as he hacked into the fungal plating of its face, he didn't stop until he saw bone.

Then he grabbed its unprotected face and brought it to his gaping maw. In one smooth motion Keth ripped off half of the infected's face. There was only a few twitches as the body soon fell silent.

Keth spit out pieces of brain and bone before feeling his instincts telling him to let out a fierce roar to dissuade any other prey. Keth quickly crushed those feelings with surprising ease.

"Holy shit!" Keth's head immediately snapped to the side where he saw the three humans atop some wall near a window.

He always had trouble gauging expressions, but he could tell that each human had their own. The larger human seemed more shocked than anything else. Not that Keth could blame him, he could feel the blood between his claws and even some dripping from his chin, to which he tried to wipe away with his sleeve.

The other male seemed just as shocked, but more ready as he held his rifle readied at the Floran's head.

"That was fucking awesome!" The little one seemed to be of awe, which really confused the Floran.

 **0o0o0o0o0o0o0**

 **Holy shit did I fucking procrastinate or what.**

 **Sorry about that, no real excuse.**

 **This is just my hobby but I feel that I need to be somewhat consistent.**

 **I'll try to do better!**


End file.
